Abstract
Cryogenic air separation has efficaciously been implemented to provision oxygen, nitrogen, argon, neon, and other valuable products for a wide range of applications. Herein, the present study investigates neon and argon recovery from a novel four-column air separation unit. The system is appraised through thermodynamic and sensitivity analyses. The system produces a crude neon product with a small fraction (approximately 0.08), as well as argon and oxygen with a purity of 0.93 and 0.995, respectively. The energy analysis indicated an overall specific energy consumption of 0.057 kWh/kg. The exergy analysis revealed that the air coolers had the highest exergy destruction at a share of 59%, while the columns had the least at 4%. Also, the pumps, expanders, and valves, respectively, had the highest exergy efficiencies. The sensitivity analysis signposted that the temperature and pressure of the inlet to the low-pressure column in tandem with the reflux ratio of argon and neon column have the highest influence on system performance. Feeding on 100 kg/s of air, the system produces 82.87 kg/s of nitrogen, 16.81 kg/s of oxygen, 0.018 kg/s of neon, and 0.302 kg/s of argon.
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01 September 2022
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11696-022-02450-3
Abbreviations
- e :
-
Exergy (kJ/kg)
- h :
-
Specific enthalpy
- I :
-
Exergy destruction
- P :
-
Pump
- \(\dot{Q}\) :
-
Heat flow (kW)
- T :
-
Temperature (°C)
- \(\dot{W}\) :
-
Work flow (kW)
- °:
-
Dead state
- c :
-
Cold
- ch:
-
Pertinent to chemical exergy
- h :
-
Hot
- i :
-
Ith component
- ph:
-
Pertinent to physical exergy
- \(\Delta\) :
-
Gradient
- AC:
-
Air cooler
- ARC:
-
Argon column
- ASU:
-
Air separation unit
- BFD:
-
Block flow diagram
- C:
-
Compressor
- EX:
-
Expander
- HE:
-
Heat exchanger
- HPC:
-
High-pressure column
- LMTD:
-
Log mean temperature difference (°C)
- LPC:
-
Low-pressure column
- NEC:
-
Neon column
- PFD:
-
Process flow diagram
- SD:
-
Standard deviation
- SEC:
-
Specific energy consumption
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Saedi, M., Mehrpooya, M., Delpisheh, M. et al. Proposal and energy/exergy analysis of a novel cryogenic air separation configuration for the production of neon and argon. Chem. Pap. 76, 7075–7093 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11696-022-02396-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11696-022-02396-6