Apparatus for separating oxygen from ambient air
AssigneeVbox, Incorporated
InventorsNicholas P. Van Brunt, Theodore W. Jagger, Perry B. Lonnes, John A. Kivisto
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Abstract
An apparatus for separation of gases from ambient air that has at least one separation column with an inlet at a first end and an outlet at a second end, a buffer column having a single inlet at a first end, a vacuum pump, and a valve system that connects the vacuum pump to the outlet at the first end of the separation column, and that connects the outlet at the second end of separation column to the single inlet at the first end of the buffer column.
Claims10
An apparatus for separation of gases from ambient air, the apparatus comprising:
- at least one separation column, the separation column containing an inlet at a first end and an outlet at a second end;
- a buffer column having an adsorbent with a high capacity for nitrogen adsorption, the buffer column comprising a single port;
- a vacuum pump;
- a valve system that connects the vacuum pump to the inlet at the first end of the separation column, and that connects the outlet at the second end of separation column to the single port of the buffer column simultaneously.
A method of separating ambient air to obtain a stream of oxygen rich gas, the method comprising the steps:
- 1) evacuating a separation column to a first pressure through a feed end of a column;
- 2) metering a flow of gas from a last in/first out (LIFO) buffer column having an adsorbent with a high capacity for nitrogen adsorption into a product end of the separation column while continuing to evacuate the column to a second pressure;
- 3) stopping evacuation of the column while continuing the flow of gas from the LIFO buffer column at a second flow rate until a third pressure is reached in the separation column;
- 4) pressurizing the separation column with ambient air through the feed end to a pressure of about 1 atm;
- and
- 5) feeding air into the feed end of the column while drawing an oxygen rich gas from the product end of the separation column;
- and
- 6) repeating steps 1 through 5.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.