Disclosed herein are new processes for adsorbing oxygen using adsorbent compositions comprising RHO zeolites kinetically selective for oxygen. The RHO zeolites can be used in pressure swing adsorption processes for separating oxygen from oxygen containing streams, such as for, but not limited to, purifying a crude argon feed stream or separating oxygen from an air feed stream.

Provided are an oxygen concentrator, a control method, and a control program capable of preventing an internal pressure drop of the concentrated oxygen gas tank in order to extract concentrated oxygen gas at a predetermined flow rate. An oxygen concentrator capable of preventing a pressure drop in both cylinders in the pressure equalization step and, as a result, preventing a drop in the internal pressure of a concentrated oxygen gas tank, by starting pressurization in advance in the already depressurized adsorption cylinder before the pressure equalization step.

In embodiments of the present disclosure, a CMS hollow fiber membranes may be prepared to have an ultrathin (e.g. 2 microns or less) separation layer. A precursor hollow fiber may be prepared as dual layer fibers having a thin sheath layer and a core layer. During pyrolysis, the sheath layer is transformed into an ultrathin separation layer. Porosity of the core layer substrate is well-maintained during pyrolysis, thereby enabling high permeance of the CMS hollow fiber membrane. Additionally, in some embodiments, the sheath layer of the precursor hollow fibers may be hybridized prior to pyrolysis. By hybridizing the sheath layer prior to pyrolysis, a CMS hollow fiber may having an improved separation factor, including for example increased carbon dioxide/methane selectivity, may be provided.

Techniques for treating a natural gas feed stream include receiving a natural gas feed stream that includes one or more acid gases, one or more hydrocarbon fluids, and one or more non-hydrocarbon fluids; circulating the natural gas feed stream to a membrane module; separating, with the membrane module, at least a portion of the one or more acid gases into a permeate stream and at least a portion of the one or more hydrocarbon fluids into a reject stream; circulating the permeate stream to a distillation unit; and separating, in the distillation unit, the one or more acid gases from the one or more non-hydrocarbon fluids.

A neon recovering/purifying system including: a recovery vessel that is arranged on an exhaust gas route and stores exhaust gas, the exhaust gas route being branched and extending from a discharge line; a compressor that increases a pressure of the exhaust gas sent out from the recovery vessel, to a third pressure; an exhaust gas flow rate regulating unit that regulates a flow rate of the exhaust gas whose pressure has been increased by the compressor; a first impurity removing unit that removes a first impurity from the exhaust gas; a second impurity removing unit that removes a second impurity from the exhaust gas from which the first impurity has been removed; a pressure increasing vessel that stores purified gas that has been processed by the first impurity removing unit and the second impurity removing unit; a pressure reducing valve that reduces a pressure of the purified gas sent out from the pressure increasing vessel, to the first pressure; and a purified gas flow rate regulating unit that regulates a flow rate of the purified gas supplied to a supply line of a manufacturing system.

Device and method for purifying a gas mixture to produce a concentrated gas, notably neon, starting from a mixture comprising neon, said device including, in a cold box housing a cryogenic purification circuit comprising, in series, at least one unit for purifying the mixture by cryogenic adsorption at a temperature between 65K and 100K and notably 65K, then a unit for cooling the mixture to a temperature between 25 and 65 K and then a unit for cryogenic distillation of the mixture to produce the concentrated liquid at the outlet of the cryogenic distillation unit, characterized in that the unit for cooling the mixture to a temperature between 25 and 65 K comprises at least one cryocooler that extracts thermal power from the mixture via a heat exchanger.

A method for gas separation, purification and clarification by FTrPSA uses the temperature and pressure of different raw gases as well as the differences in adsorption separation coefficients and physicochemical properties among all components in the raw gases at a temperature range of 80-200 C. and a pressure range of 0.03-4.0 Mpa, regulates the adsorption or desorption regeneration operation in the PSA cycle process by coupling various separation methods, and expands the adsorption theory that the PSA or TSA separation process is limited to the cyclic operation of adsorption and desorption regeneration through pressure or temperature changes, thus realizing the gradient utilization of energy in the process of gas separation, purification and clarification as well as the easy-to-match and easy-to-balance cyclic operation of adsorption and desorption regeneration in the process of intercooling & shallow-cooling and medium & high-temperature PSA separation to separate, purify and clarify various raw gases.

A system and method of efficiently producing ultrapure hydrogen from ammonia using a single energy efficient processing step. Ammonia is introduced into reaction cells. Each reaction cell has a first tube of hydrogen permeable material that is concentrically positioned within a second tube of hydrogen impermeable material. The concentric orientation between the first tube and the second tube creates a very narrow reaction gap space between the two tubes. The reaction cell is heated to an operational temperature that is efficient for the heat cracking of ammonia and which makes the first tube highly permeable to hydrogen. Ammonia is introduced into the gap space, wherein the ammonia cracks into nitrogen and hydrogen. The hydrogen contacts the first tube and permeates through the first tube. Accordingly, the cracking of ammonia and the separation of hydrogen occurs in the same reaction cell at the same time using the same heat energy.

A method of removing buffer gas from a mixture comprising the buffer gas and hyperpolarized noble gas is described. The method includes reacting the buffer gas to produce a reaction product different to the buffer gas. The buffer gas may be reactively removed by one or more of oxidation, reduction, polymerization and binding reactions with solid surfaces. The buffer gas may be molecular hydrogen and/or molecular nitrogen. Apparatus for carrying out the method are also disclosed.

The invention relates to a method for producing helium from a source gas stream (1) including at least helium, methane, nitrogen and hydrogen, comprising at least the following consecutive steps: step a): injecting said source gas stream (1) into at least one compressor (3); step b): eliminating the hydrogen and the methane by reacting the stream (4) obtained from step a) with oxygen; step c): eliminating at least the impurities from step b) by temperature swing adsorption (TSA); step d): partially condensing the stream (8) obtained from step c) in order to produce a stream (10) of liquid nitrogen and a gas stream (11) comprising mostly helium; step e): purifying the gas stream (11) obtained from step d) in order to increase the helium content by pressure swing adsorption (PSA) by eliminating the nitrogen and the impurities contained in the gas stream (11) obtained from step d).