An electrolytic smelting system includes: an electrolytic smelting furnace including a furnace body to which a molten ore is introduced, a cathode substrate which is installed on a bottom portion in the furnace body, and an anode substrate which is positioned above the cathode substrate in the furnace body; an inert gas circulation unit including a circulation line to recover an inert gas supplied into the electrolytic smelting furnace together with oxygen and supply the inert gas to the molten ore; and an oxygen-removing unit which is installed in the circulation line and which removes oxygen from the circulation line.

The invention provides a method and system for separating xenon-krypton mixed gas by hydrate formation process. The system is mainly composed of a gas hydrate generating unit, a heat exchanging unit and a gas-water separating unit: pre-cooled xenon-krypton mixed gas is injected from a bottom of a reaction tower, xenon gas in the mixed gas and water attached to a porous tray generate a xenon gas hydrate; and water is injected from a top of the tower to wet the porous tray, a generated hydrate particle is washed and collected to the bottom of the tower simultaneously to form a hydrate slurry, after passing through the heat exchanging unit, the xenon gas hydrate in the slurry is decomposed to form a gas phase flow and a water phase flow, and then enters the gas-water separating unit, and the xenon gas is separated from decomposed water.

A method for flexible production of argon from a cryogenic air separation unit is provided. The disclosed cryogenic air separation unit is capable of operating in a ‘no-argon’ or ‘low-argon’ mode when argon demand is low or non-existent and then switching to operating in a ‘high-argon’ mode when argon is needed. The recovery of the argon products from the air separation unit is adjusted by varying the percentages of dirty shelf nitrogen and clean shelf nitrogen in the reflux stream directed to the lower pressure column. The cryogenic air separation unit and associated method also provides an efficient argon production/rejection process that minimizes the power consumption when the cryogenic air separation unit is operating in a ‘no-argon’ or ‘low-argon’ mode yet maintains the capability to produce higher volumes of argon products at full design capacity to meet argon product demands.

A separation device includes a membrane separation module (10), an adsorption module (20), and a gas intake module (30). The membrane separation module includes a first housing (110), and a membrane assembly (130) disposed in the first housing. The first housing has a first gas inlet (121), a first gas outlet (122), and a retentate gas outlet (123). The membrane module has a permeate gas outlet, the permeate gas outlet being in communication with the first gas outlet. The adsorption module has a second housing (210) and an adsorbent layer (230) disposed in it. The second housing is disposed on the first housing and has a second gas inlet (221), a second gas outlet (222), and a desorption gas outlet (223). The second gas inlet is in communication with the first gas outlet. The gas intake module has a third gas outlet (321) in communication with the first gas inlet.

Disclosed is a system for treating exhaust fluid from semiconductor manufacturing equipment in which cleaning gases decomposed by a plastic apparatus alternately flow towards a front rotor region (a main rotor unit) and a rear rotor region (a subsidiary rotor unit) of a booster pump and then flow towards a dry pump, and thus uniformly react with process byproducts present throughout the whole area in a vacuum pump including the booster pump and the dry pump so as to improve removal efficiency of the process byproducts. Further, the retention time of the cleaning gases decomposed by the plasma apparatus in the vacuum pump is increased by adjusting the pressure in the pump with the rotational speed of a motor, and thus the reaction time of the cleaning gases with the process byproducts is increased, so as to further improve removal efficiency of the process byproducts, such as SiO.sub.2 powder.

A method and system for purification of helium and CO.sub.2 from a stream containing at least Helium, CO2, nitrogen or methane uses a combination of cryogenic, membrane and adsorption technologies.

According to one embodiment, a gas recovering apparatus includes a casing and a tube. The casing is provided with an inlet through which a gas flows in, a first outlet for discharging a first gas containing a gas to be recovered of the gas, and a second outlet for discharging a second gas other than the first gas of the gas. The casing is evacuated via the first outlet. The tube is provided in the casing from the inlet to the second outlet, and has a high permeability to the first gas and a low permeability to the second gas.

A method for recovering a helium product or intermediate product, wherein a first natural gas stream containing helium is supplied to a first natural gas processing unit and at least one second natural gas stream containing helium is supplied to at least one second natural gas processing unit, at least the first natural gas processing unit comprising helium recovery means via which the helium product is formed from at least a part of the first natural gas stream. At least temporarily a helium transfer from the at least one second natural gas stream to the first natural gas stream by means of a helium transfer arrangement comprising a membrane unit is performed before the first natural gas stream is provided to the first natural gas processing unit and before the at least one second natural gas stream is provided to the at least one second natural gas processing unit.

A process comprising: subjecting a process gas containing NOx to a stage for absorption of NOx in a suitable absorption means, obtaining nitric acid and a tail gas containing nitrogen, argon and residual NOx; subjecting said tail gas to a treatment which comprises at least one NOx removal stage, obtaining a conditioned tail gas; subjecting at least a portion of said conditioned tail gas to a separation treatment, obtaining a product stream containing argon and a product stream containing nitrogen.

An air filter apparatus includes at least one frame that is configured to receive a filter media, and at least one sensing mechanism for sensing contamination of the filter media. The sensing mechanism can include a wave emitter and a wave detector. The wave emitter and the wave detector can be arranged so that the wave travels along a path that is substantially parallel to outer faces of the filter media. The wave detector can be located at a first edge of the frame, and the wave emitter can be located spaced apart laterally from the wave detector at a second edge of the frame, so that waves from the emitter can travel along the path through and laterally across the filter media towards the detector. The path can be substantially perpendicular to the general direction of air flow within the filter media.