Nitrogen Package PSA
Nowadays, the production of high-quality nitrogen as one of the most widely used industrial gases using PSA nitrogen package is so important. This industrial gas plays a key role in petroleum refining industries for cleaning, sealing process compressors, and hydrocarbon storage tanks.
Basically, there are two common methods for producing nitrogen.
The first production method is deep cooling or so-called cryogenic, which is used for very high purity and production of liquid nitrogen.
The second method is by surface adsorption process (PSA), which is a practical method to produce nitrogen at the place of consumption. PSA technology uses two towers filled with carbon molecular adsorbents (CMS). Compressed air enters the bottom of the first tower and flows upwards by passing through the CMS bed. By absorbing oxygen and other rare gases by the adsorbent bed, nitrogen is removed from the top of the tower. After a certain time has passed and the bed is saturated, the tower enters the regeneration phase and the flow of pure nitrogen for purification removes oxygen from the bed so that the tower is ready for operation again. Finally, one tower is always in operational mode and the other tower is in recovery mode so that the consumer receives the nitrogen flow continuously.
It should be noted that molecular carbon is different from conventional activated carbons because it has much narrower pores. These adsorbents allow small molecules such as oxygen to penetrate the pores and separate from nitrogen molecules that are too large to enter the CMS. Larger molecules bypass the CMS and appear as nitrogen gas. PSA nitrogen generators are typically used in applications requiring greater than 95% purity (5% O2 or less).
Oxygen Package PSA
Ambient air contains 21% oxygen, 78% nitrogen, 0.9% argon and 0.1% rare gases. The production of high-purity oxygen gas is of particular importance as one of the most important industrial gases that have significant medical and hospital consumption.
There are two common methods to produce oxygen:
The first method of production is by deep cooling or so-called cryogenic, which is used for very high purity and production of liquid oxygen.
The second method is pressure swing absorption (PSA), which is a practical method to produce oxygen at the point of consumption.
In PSA oxygen production systems, which are based on the physical screening method, by passing compressed air through a material bed called zeolite, the components in the air such as nitrogen are separated to a large extent, and finally pure oxygen is produced with an approximate concentration of 90-95%. In this technology, air molecules are separated by the porous absorbent surface and after saturating the absorbent surface, the regeneration process is performed by reducing the pressure. In PSA oxygen production devices, there are two columns filled with zeolite, one column produces oxygen, and the other releases absorbed nitrogen. In other words, at the same time as the first column is in the state of oxygen separation, the second column is being regenerated by sudden discharge and passage of pure oxygen to purify and discharge nitrogen, and in specific time intervals, the absorption and regeneration columns constantly change roles.