PRODUCTION OF NITROGEN BY AIR SEPARATION

摘要

Production of nitrogen from air, by compressing air to relatively low pressure, e.g. to about 3 atmospheres, and passing the compressed feed air to alternate passages of a reversing heat exchanger in heat exchange relation with an oxygen-rich waste stream, whereby water vapor and CO2 in the feed air are frozen on the surface of the heat exchange passage. By reversing the flow streams the low pressure oxygen-rich waste stream now flows through the feed air passage. This causes sublimation or evaporation of the CO2 and water vapor. A portion of the feed air is withdrawn at an intermediate point in the exchanger and is expanded in a turbine. The cooled feed air withdrawn from the heat exchanger is fed to a non-adiabatic fractionating device, whereby oxygen-rich liquid is condensed and withdrawn, and nitrogen is removed as overhead. The oxygen-rich liquid is mixed with the portion of feed air discharged from the turbine, and such mixture, and the nitrogen overhead are passed through the fractionating system in heat exchange relation with and countercurrent to the feed air being separated in the fractionation zone. The waste oxygen-rich stream exiting the heat exchange passage of the fractionating zone is passed through one of the reversing passages of the reversing heat exchanger, the fractionation being carried out so that there is only about a 3 DEG R temperature difference between the waste oxygen-rich stream and the feed air at the cold end of the reversing heat exchanger. The nitrogen product is passed through a separate passage of the reversing heat exchanger also in countercurrent heat exchange relation with the feed air.