Process for separating a gaseous flow by a PSA procedure

US6068678A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• L'Air Liquide, Societe Anonyme Pour l'Etude et l'Exploitation des Procedes Georges Claude · FR

Inventors

• Jacques Labasque · Versailles, FR
• Serge Moreau · Vélizy-Villacoublay, FR
• Christine Marot · Versailles, FR

Key dates

• Filing date: Jul 6, 1998
• Grant date: May 30, 2000
• Expiry date: Jul 6, 2018

Classification

• Technology area (CPC Y): Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
• CPC primary: Y10S95/902
• WIPO field: Chemical engineering
• WIPO sector: Chemistry

Abstract

A PSA process for the separation of a feed gas, for example air, containing at least one first component, such as nitrogen, and a second component, such as oxygen, by preferential adsorption of the first component at a high adsorption pressure, on at least one bed of particles of an adsorbent material and recovery of a gas flow enriched in the second component, with desorption of the first component at a low desorption pressure. The ratio (.mu./.sigma.) of the mean granulometry (.mu.) of the adsorbent particles contained in the bed, to the breadth of granulometric distribution (.sigma.) of the particles, is comprised within the range 1.5 to 15, the particles of adsorbent material being particles of zeolite, such as zeolite X or zeolite LSX, exchanged by metallic cations, preferably cations of lithium and/or calcium.