A method for producing power and argon is provided by providing a residual gas stream, purifying the residual gas stream in a front-end purification unit to remove carbon dioxide, thereby forming a purified residual gas stream, and introducing the purified residual gas stream to a cold box, wherein the purified residual gas stream is cooled and expanded within the cold box to produce power and then fed to a distillation column system for separation therein, thereby forming an argon-enriched stream and optionally a nitrogen-enriched stream and/or an oxygen-enriched stream, wherein the residual gas stream is sourced from a retentate stream of a cold membrane having oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and argon.

A system for storing or producing electricity, which allows stabilization of a power network under conditions of excess availability of electricity or lack thereof and for producing liquefied natural gas is provided.

A portion of feed air is expanded and cooled in front of a main heat exchanger, and is used as cold for precooling the remaining unexpanded feed air inside the main heat exchanger. A portion of the feed air precooled inside the main heat exchanger is removed to outside the main heat exchanger, expanded and cooled, and used as cold to cool the remaining unexpanded precooled feed air inside the main heat exchanger.

An apparatus for producing product nitrogen gas and product argon, comprising: a first rectification column into which raw air is introduced; a second rectification column from which product nitrogen gas is drawn; a third rectification column from which product argon gas is drawn; and a first condenser configured to perform heat exchange between a gas accumulated in a column top portion of the first rectification column, and a liquid accumulated in a column bottom portion of the second rectification column, wherein an intermediate portion gas containing nitrogen is drawn from an intermediate portion of the second rectification column and merged with a condenser gas drawn from the first condenser. The merged gases are expanded and cooled by means of an expansion turbine whereby the cold thereof is utilized.

The device (100) for cooling a flow (101) of a target fluid predominantly comprising dihydrogen, comprises: a first heat exchanger (105) configured to cool an intermediate refrigerant fluid (110) by heat exchange with an expanded dioxygen flow (115), an intermediate closed circuit (120) for transporting the intermediate refrigerant fluid from the first heat exchanger to a second heat exchanger (125), a means (130) for compressing the intermediate refrigerant fluid along the intermediate closed circuit, the intermediate refrigerant fluid, configured to remain in the liquid or supercritical state at least upon passing through the compression means and the second heat exchanger configured to cool the target fluid flow by heat exchange with the intermediate refrigerant fluid cooled in the first heat exchanger.

A method for separating air by cryogenic distillation in a system of columns comprising a first column and a second column operating at a lower pressure than the first column, comprising the steps of compressing all of the feed air in a first compressor to a first output pressure of at least 1 bar greater than the pressure of the first column, sending a first portion of the air under the first output pressure to the second compressor, and compressing the air to a second output pressure, cooling and condensing at least a portion of the air under the second output pressure in a heat exchanger, withdrawal of a liquid from a column of the system of columns, pressurising the liquid and evaporating the liquid by heat exchange in the heat exchanger, and pressure reduction of a portion of the compressed air to a second output pressure, at least partially evaporating said air in the heat exchanger, optionally additional heating of said air in the heat exchanger, and sending at least a portion of this air to the second compressor.

An arrangement comprising at least one liquefaction plant for liquefying a gaseous medium to produce a liquefied medium; and at least one storage tank for storing the liquefied medium. At least one first transfer line is connected between the liquefaction plant and the storage tank, for transferring liquefied medium from the liquefaction plant into the storage tank. At least one second transfer line is connected between the liquefaction plant and the storage tank, for transferring gaseous medium from the storage tank into the liquefaction plant. At least one shut-off valve is provided in each transfer line. The apparatus further includes a bypass line

A system and method for the production and supply of a densified, liquid oxidant to a space vehicle launch facility with one or more launch platforms is provided. In one embodiment, a low pressure gaseous oxygen stream is piped from a nearby air separation unit to the space vehicle launch facility where it is then liquefied and densified in a two-stage, integrated liquefaction/densification system. In an alternate embodiment, a liquid oxygen stream produced at an air separation unit is densified in a two-stage, integrated densification system at or near the air separation unit with the resulting densified liquid oxygen product transported via truck/trailer to a nearby space vehicle launch facility.

A process for recovering at least one fluid (e.g. xenon gas and/or krypton gas, etc.) from a feed gas can include utilization of a compression system, primary heat exchanger unit, a pre-purification unit (PPU), and other units to separate and recover at least one desired fluid. In some embodiments, fluid flows output from a first heat exchanger or separation system of the plant can be split so that a portion of a stream is output for downstream processing to purify xenon (Xe) and/or krypton (Kr) product flow(s) while another portion of the stream is recycled to a compression system or the PPU to undergo further purification and heat exchange so that the product output for downstream processing has a higher concentration of Xe or Kr. Some embodiments can be configured to provide an improved recovery of Xe and/or Kr as well as an improvement in operational efficiency.

An ultra-high-purity oxygen production method and apparatus are provide, in which the method can include a step in which feed oxygen comprising low-boiling-point components as impurities is introduced from a warm end of a main heat exchanger and cooled, then introduced into an oxygen rectification column, and product ultra-high-purity oxygen from which the low-boiling-point components have been removed is drawn as a gas or a liquid from a lower portion of the oxygen rectification column.