Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Uses
• Oxygen
– It is used to produce oxyacetylene flame to cut and weld the metals
– Used in oxygen steelmaking process
– Used as artificial respiration for patients
– Used by mountain climbers, sea divers and high attitude airplane
pilots
• Nitrogen
– Used in manufacture of synthetic nitrogen oxide, ammonia, nitric acid
– Used in manufacture of organic nitrates e.g; propellants and
explosives
– Synthetically produced nitrates are key ingredients of industrial
fertilizers
– Applied to create inert atmosphere
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Introduction
Oxygen
• Oxygen (O2) composed of two atoms of the element at (O)
bind to form dioxygen, a very pale blue, odorless, tasteless
diatomic gas.
Introduction
Oxygen
• It constitutes 20.95% of the volume of air
• It is necessary to sustain life
• It is the highly reactive nonmetallic element that
readily forms compounds or oxides with almost all
other elements
• It is a strong oxidizing agent and has the second-
highest electro negativity after fluorine than of all the
elements
• By mass, after hydrogen and helium, oxygen is the
third-most abundant element in the universe
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Introduction
Oxygen
• Oxygen was independently discovered by Carl Wilhelm Scheele and
Joseph Priestley in 1773 and 1774 respectively, but work was first
published by Priestley.
• Antoine Lavoisier named as oxygen in 1777, whose experiments
with oxygen helped to discredit the then-popular phlogiston theory
of combustion and corrosion.
Introduction
Nitrogen
• Nitrogen (N2) is a colorless, odorless, tasteless,
and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard
conditions, constituting 78.09% by volume of
Earth's atmosphere.
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Introduction
Nitrogen
• Nitrogen occurs in all living organisms, primarily
in amino acids, proteins and in the nucleic acids
(DNA and RNA).
• The human body contains about 3% by weight of
nitrogen, the fourth most abundant element
after oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen.
• Nitrogen was discovered by Daniel Rutherford in
1772, who called it noxious air or fixed air.
• He also explains that nitrogen does not support
combustion.
Introduction
Nitrogen
• At the same time by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Henry
Cavendish, and Joseph Priestley, referred it as burnt air or
phlogisticated air.
• Antoine Lavoisier referred nitrogen as inert gas and as
"mephitic air" or azote, in which animals died and flames
were extinguished.
• English word nitrogen entered the language in 1794.
• The extremely strong bond in elemental nitrogen causing
difficulty for both organisms and industry in breaking the
bond to convert the nitrogen into useful compounds, but
large amounts of useful energy released when the
compounds burn, explode, or decay back into nitrogen gas.
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Introduction
Analysis of Air
• Air mainly consist of two gases oxygen and nitrogen,
which are practically considered to constitute 1/5 and
4/5 of air by volume respectively. The list of various
gases present in air by weight percent is as under
Ratio compared to Dry Air(%)
Gas
By volume By weight
Oxygen 20.95 23.2
Nitrogen 78.09 75.47
Argon 0.933 1.28
Carbon Dioxide 0.03 0.046
Neon 0.0018 0.0012
Helium 0.0005 0.00007
Krypton 0.0001 0.0003
Introduction
Analysis of Air
• Except CO2 the concentration of all the gases
present in air are constant.
• Water vapors and traces of ozone and iodine are
present in air in variable amounts.
• Composition of air depends on altitude and
distance to sea, in neighborhood of industry,
built up urban areas, nearby volcanic
phenomena.
• Other gases such as CO, H2S and NO2 are also
present in air.
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Introduction
Kinetics and theory of gases
• At lower pressure the average distance
between molecules is large, and at high
pressure the molecules are brought near to
one another.
• Similarly, with fall of temperature average
distance between molecules diminishes and,
the molecules come closer together.
Introduction
Critical temperature
• When by decreasing the temperature, the molecules of a
gas are brought close together, the gas assumes the liquid
form provided the repulsive tendency has been diminished
beyond a certain point known as critical temperature
which is different for different gases.
• Above the critical temperature any gas cannot be liquefied by
compression. The critical temperature is the temperature
below which a gas can be liquefied by mere application of
pressure.
• Below the critical temperature, the gas is termed as vapor
(gas co-exists in equilibrium with its corresponding liquid) and
above the critical temperature it is called a gas.
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Introduction
Critical pressure
• The minimum pressure under which gas
liquefies at the critical temperature is called as
critical pressure.
• Above critical temperature the gas will never
liquefy under any pressure.
• Therefore air should be cooled at very high
pressure and low temperature for cooling
purpose.
Introduction
The critical temperature and critical pressure of
some gases are as follows
Gases Critical temperature (oC) Critical pressure (atm.)
Ethylene 9.5 50.65
Methane -82.85 45.6
Nitrogen -147.13 33.49
Hydrogen -239.9 12.8
Oxygen -118.75 49.7
Acetylene 35.5 61.55
Ammonia 132.5 112.3
Carbon monoxide -138.7 34.6
Carbon dioxide 31.3 72.9
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Liquefaction
• The substances which are gaseous at ordinary
temperatures can be converted into liquid
state if sufficiently cooled and simultaneously
subjected to a high pressure.
• So, the liquefaction of gases is linked with the
production of low temperatures.
• There are various methods of liquefaction of
gases.
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Manufacture
• Linde’s Process
– The first rectification of N2 and O2 using Joule Thomson
effect was carried out by Linde in 1906.
– After six year Claude rectified them by combined effect of
external work and internal work in cooling the air to
liquefaction point.
• Raw materials
– Basis: 1000kg Oxygen (95%)
– Air = 3600Nm3
– Steam = 1750kg
– Cooling water = 5000kg
– Electricity = 450-480kWH
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Linde’s Process
• Disadvantage of Linde’s air liquefaction
method
– It results in a lower yield of around 10%.
– The working pressure is very high resulting in high
power consumption and requiring robust
equipment.
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Linde’s Process
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Claude’s Process
Manufacture
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Adsorptive Separation
• Nitrogen production by pressure-swing
adsorption (PSA) employs carbon molecular
sieves.
• The feed air is compressed to 5 – 12 bar, passed
through a water-cooled heat exchanger and a
condensate separator, and then fed to the
adsorbers , which alternate between adsorption
and regeneration.
• Water, carbon dioxide and oxygen are removed
by adsorption on carbon molecular sieves.
Adsorptive Separation
• The unadsorbed nitrogen leaves the adsorber during
the adsorption phase, goes to a buffer vessel at 4 – 11
bar (i.e., ca. 1 bar below the selected inlet pressure)
and is delivered from the vessel.
• At the same time, the second adsorber is being
regenerated by pressure reduction.
• In principle, the pressure level during the adsorption
and regeneration phase can also be lowered; the
compressor is replaced by a blower, and a vacuum
pump is used to reduce the pressure for regeneration.
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Adsorptive Separation
Adsorptive Separation
• Compressed air enters the
adsorption bed at high pressure.
• Typical adsorbents are usually based
on zeolites.
• Nitrogen is adsorbed to an
appreciably greater extent and
oxygen-enriched air is obtained at
the outlet.
• The bed is then blown down to a
lower pressure to desorb nitrogen.
• A purge step may sometimes be
used to sweep nitrogen out of the
bed before a new cycle begins
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Membrane separation
• Nitrogen containing less
than 10 ppm by volume of
oxygen can be produced
economically by using a
membrane/Deoxo hybrid
system; oxygen is removed
by reducing it to water
over a catalyst with
hydrogen.
• The gas leaving the catalyst
bed is cooled, dried, and
delivered as product.
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