ARGON AND NITROGEN COPRODUCTION PROCESS

摘要

Argon and nitrogen are produced in a basic two step process. In a first step, oxygen is removed from a compressed air feed using a PSA (pressure swing adsorption) unit 17 operating at low temperature. In the second step, argon and nitrogen mixture is separated by cryogenic distillation in distillation column 22. The process yields crude liquid argon at the bottom or the column 22 and very high purity gaseous nitrogen at the top of column 22.