The argon fraction containing 10% argon is used as the raw material for condensing and rectifying the argon in the two column process, the crude argon rectifying column process, the open heat pump process and the new single column process. Can the argon fraction containing 4-5% argon be used as the distillation raw material for the argon extraction unit? Or more directly, the small air separation column is completely organized as a nitrogen oxygen argon distillation column, and then the argon fraction containing 4-5% argon at the bottom of the air separation column is sent to the crude argon distillation column for distillation separation?
Using the mixture of oxygen and argon containing 4-5% argon as the raw material of crude argon distillation column can not simply use the open heat pump distillation process, so its energy consumption will be three times higher than that of the distillation with 10% argon fraction, which is not acceptable. However, if the double heat pump distillation scheme is adopted, a heat pump with 10% argon fraction as the circulating working fluid is added, The energy consumption can be reduced to 130-180%. The reason why there is such a range is affected by the heat transfer temperature difference of the condenser. The heat transfer temperature difference of the condenser is 180% at 1.5k and 130% at 0.5K.
If we want to improve the purity of oxygen products, as long as we increase the heat pump circulation capacity of argon fraction containing 10% argon as the circulating working fluid or increase the number of theoretical trays in the stripping section, the purity index of oxygen products can be increased to 99.9% or more with very low energy consumption. At the same time, the argon extraction rate can be increased to more than 95%.
DEAR Air Separation has 20 years of air separation equipment manufacturing experience and nearly 10 years of air separation equipment operation and maintenance experience, and has accumulated mature and perfect air separation equipment overall operation and maintenance standard process.
The company has a number of patented technologies, of which two ultra-low pressure discharge energy-saving patents are domestic leading level, which can reduce the energy consumption of air separation plant by 5% - 15% and save operating costs.
