A comparison between the product-refill and the equalization oxygen pressure swing adsorption processes

Abstract EN

This work presents a design for a pressure swing adsorption process (PSA) to separate oxygen from air with approximately 95 % purity, suitable for different numbers of columns and arrangements.

The product refill PSA process was found to perform 33 % better (weight of zeolite required or productivity) than the pressure equalization process.

The design is based on the adsorption equilibrium of a binary mixture of O2 and N2 for two of the most commonly used adsorbents, 5A and 13X, and extension from a single column approach.

Zeolite 13X was found to perform 6 % better than zeolite 5A.

The most effective variables were determined to be the adsorption step time and the operational pressure.

Increasing the adsorption step time from 1 to 5 minutes decreased the performance by approximately 5 times.

Increasing the pressure from 2 to 6 bars increased the performance by approximately 3 times.