(1) Throttling effect cooling capacity
The air with high pressure entering the air separation unit expands after pressure reduction through throttle valves, pipelines, equipment, etc. inside the unit. Usually, the throttling process will cause a decrease in temperature, and the ability of a gas to carry away heat is the amount of heat that a low-pressure gas can carry away when it returns to the same inlet temperature when leaving the device. This indicates that at the same temperature, gases with high pressure have less energy (enthalpy) than gases with low pressure, and the difference in energy (enthalpy) between the two is the amount of heat that can be absorbed, which is called throttling effect cooling capacity.
(2) Cooling capacity of expansion mechanism
When a gas with higher pressure expands through an expander, the energy (enthalpy) of the gas itself decreases and the temperature significantly decreases due to the gas pushing the impeller to rotate and outputting work to the outside. Its ability to take away heat is the energy that recovers from heat absorption to before expansion. Therefore, the difference in energy (enthalpy) before and after expansion of the expander is the cooling capacity of the expander.
(3) Refrigeration capacity provided by the refrigerator
Air separation equipment that uses molecular sieve purification often uses the low-temperature working fluid of a refrigerator to pre cool the air, in order to improve the adsorption and purification effect. This is the cooling capacity provided externally by the air separation equipment, which refers to the heat carried away by the chilled water from the air. It can reduce the required throttling effect and expansion mechanism cooling capacity.
The Henan Gas Separation Engineering Technology Research Center, established based on DEAR Air Separation, has the advantage of being located in the Chinese air separation base of Kaifeng City. The center has convenient personnel autonomy and brings together a large number of elites in the Kaifeng and domestic air separation industry, making the research results of the center more refined and reaching the advanced level of the industry.
