Open AccessChemical Plant Utility – Nitrogen System Design
Author(s) -
Prasad J. Parulekar
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
international journal for research in applied science and engineering technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2321-9653
DOI - 10.22214/ijraset.2021.39047
Subject(s) - air separation , pressure swing adsorption , nitrogen , membrane , adsorption , atmospheric pressure , membrane technology , separation process , gas separation , separation (statistics) , chemistry , materials science , process engineering , analytical chemistry (journal) , chromatography , engineering , computer science , oxygen , biochemistry , oceanography , organic chemistry , machine learning , geology
The study is been conducted to understand the different techniques to separate nitrogen from atmospheric air. Separation of nitrogen takes place by following techniques: Cryogenic air separation, Pressure swing adsorption and Membrane separation technique. Cryogenic air separation operates at a very low temperature, which uses the principle of rectification to separate nitrogen at a very high purity (99.999%). Pressure swing adsorption rely on the fact that higher the pressure, more the gas is adsorbed which results in high purity (95-99.99%) of nitrogen. Membrane separation technology is the process that uses hollow fibre membranes to separate the constituent gases in air, which gives the purity in the range of 93%-99.5%. After the comparative study, it is understood that membrane separation technique is the most efficient technology based on the cost, purity, flexibility in terms of adjusting the purity, maintenance, availability; it operates without heating and therefore uses less energy than conventional thermal separation processes. Different step designs of membrane separation techniques are discussed. A Process Flow Diagram and Piping Instrumentation Diagram is been added for single step membrane separation technique. Keywords: Atmospheric air, nitrogen, Cryogenic air separation, Pressure swing adsorption, Membrane separation technique.