Gas Mixture Fractionation to Produce Two High Purity Products by Pressure Swing Adsorption

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Abstract
Pressure swing adsorption processes have been traditionally used to produce one high purity gas stream from a gas mixture. One of the most common uses of this technology is in the production of ultrahigh purity hydrogen from various gas streams such as steam methane reformer (SMR) off-gas. However, many of these gas streams contain a second gas in sufficiently high concentrations, e.g., carbon dioxide in SMR off-gas, that the recovery of this secondary gas stream along with the primary product is extremely desirable. A new pressure swing adsorption (PSA) process, GEMINI-8, has been developed at Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., to achieve this goal. Process cycle steps for the GEMINI-8 PSA process are illustrated by SMR off-gas fractionation for the production of hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Capital and power savings of this process as well as other advantages compared with the previous technology are discussed.