A heat exchanger system includes a core-in-shell heat exchanger and a liquid/gas separator. The liquid/gas separator is configured to receive a liquid/gas mixture and to separate the gas from the liquid. The liquid/gas separator is connected to the core-in-shell heat exchanger via a first line for transmitting gas from the liquid/gas separator to a first region in the core-in-shell heat exchanger and connected to the core-in-shell heat exchanger via a second line for transmitting liquid from the liquid/gas separator to a second region of the core-in-shell heat exchanger

The present invention is directed to a method for removing elemental mercury from liquid natural gas comprising changing the stabilizer column operating conditions to beneficially transfer mercury from the stabilized condensate phase to the overhead gas phase, where it may be compressed and recycled with the gas going to the existing feed gas mercury removal units.

A method for obtaining an air product in an air separating system in which a liquid fraction is obtained from feed air and used to provide the air product and in which the liquid fraction is temporarily stored in a tank arrangement. A tank arrangement with at least two tanks is used, and the liquid fraction is fed to at least one of the tanks and/or is removed from at least one of the tanks in order to provide the air product. In the process, the liquid fraction is not fed to and removed from any one of the tanks at the same time, and the composition of the liquid fraction in a tank is ascertained prior to each removal of the liquid fraction from the tank. An air separating system is also described.

A system and method for improving the performance of an oxygen, nitrogen, and argon producing air separation unit configured to produce a gaseous nitrogen product stream is provided. By recycling the argon condenser boil-off vapor stream to the main air compression train, the argon recovery and oxygen recovery while maintaining the production level of a medium or high pressure gaseous nitrogen product stream. In addition, some operational cost savings in terms of lower power costs can also be realized compared to some prior art oxygen, nitrogen, and argon producing air separation units.

Enhancements to a dual column, nitrogen producing cryogenic air separation unit are provided. Such enhancements include an improved air separation cycle that uses multiple condenser-reboilers and recycles a portion of the vapor from one or more of the condenser-reboilers to the incoming feed stream and or the compressed purified air streams to yield improvements in such dual column, nitrogen producing cryogenic air separation units. The multiple condenser-reboilers preferably include an integrated condenser-reboiler arrangement comprising a heat exchanger having a set of nitrogen condensing passages, a first set and second set of boiling passages, and a phase separator.

The method for reducing or removing non-volatile impurities in a high-purity oxygen liquid comprises: an oxygen vaporization step for vaporizing a high-purity oxygen liquid obtained from a high-purity oxygen rectification column in an air separation unit for producing the high-purity oxygen liquid; and an oxygen recondensing step for recondensing oxygen gas vaporized in the oxygen vaporization step. This method may also comprise a high-purity oxygen liquid extraction step for extracting a condensate obtained in the oxygen recondensing step.

A heat exchanger system includes a core-in-shell heat exchanger and a liquid/gas separator. The liquid/gas separator is configured to receive a liquid/gas mixture and to separate the gas from the liquid. The liquid/gas separator is connected to the core-in-shell heat exchanger via a first line for transmitting gas from the liquid/gas separator to a first region in the core-in-shell heat exchanger and connected to the core-in-shell heat exchanger via a second line for transmitting liquid from the liquid/gas separator to a second region of the core-in-shell heat exchanger.

A method and apparatus for producing compressed nitrogen and liquid nitrogen. A separation system has a high-pressure column, a low-pressure column with a top condenser and a main condenser. Air is compressed in an air compressor, purified, cooled in a heat exchanger and introduced into the high-pressure column. A first part of the gaseous top nitrogen from the low-pressure column becomes compressed nitrogen product. A second part of the gaseous top nitrogen is condensed in the condensing space of the top condenser and vapor is drawn off as a residual gas stream. The vapor is expanded in a first expansion machine. A second compressed nitrogen stream from the top of the high-pressure column is expanded in a second expansion machine and then drawn off as compressed nitrogen product. A part of the nitrogen condensed in the top condenser is drawn off as liquid nitrogen product.

A core-in-shell heat exchanger, a method of fabricating the core-in-shell heat exchanger, and a method of exchanging heat in a core-in-shell heat exchanger disposed on a slosh-inducing moving platform are described. The method of exchanging heat includes introducing a shell-side fluid into a shell of the core-in-shell heat exchanger and introducing a fluid to be cooled into each of one or more cores of the core-in-shell heat exchanger, the one or more cores being arranged along an axial length of the shell with a plurality of baffles disposed on either side of the one or more cores along the axial length of the shell to reduce slosh of the shell-side fluid. The method also includes draining excess shell-side fluid using a plurality of drains, at least two of the plurality of drains being disposed on opposite sides of one of the plurality of baffles.

One object of the present invention is to provide an air separation method and an air separation apparatus which can collect a larger amount of nitrogen gas, liquefied oxygen, and liquefied nitrogen which have higher pressure than the operating pressure in the low-pressure column while inhibiting a decrease of the argon recovery, and the present invention provides an air separation method comprising a step in which the low-pressure liquefied oxygen at the bottom part of the low-pressure column is reboiled by the argon gas at the top part of the argon column and the middle-pressure nitrogen gas at the top part of the middle-pressure column, and a step in which the middle-pressure liquefied oxygen at the bottom part of the argon column is reboiled by the high-pressure nitrogen gas at the top part of the high-pressure column.