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.

One or more specific embodiments disclosed herein includes a method for separating hydrogen from an olefin hydrocarbon rich compressed effluent vapor stream, employing a integrated heat exchanger, multiple gas-liquid separators, external refrigeration systems, and a rectifier attached to a liquid product drum.

A process and an apparatus are disclosed for the recovery of components from a hydrocarbon gas stream which is divided into first and second streams. The first stream is cooled, expanded to lower pressure, and supplied to a fractionation tower. The second stream is cooled and separated into vapor and liquid streams. The vapor stream is divided into two portions. A first portion is cooled, expanded to tower pressure, and supplied to the tower at an upper mid-column feed position. The second portion and the liquid stream are expanded to tower pressure and supplied to the tower. After heating, compressing, and cooling, a portion of the tower overhead vapor is cooled, expanded, and supplied to the tower at the top feed position. The quantities and temperatures of the feeds to the tower maintain the overhead temperature of the tower whereby the major portion of the desired components is recovered.

The invention relates to a process for the combined production of hydrogen and carbon dioxide from a hydrocarbon mixture, in which the residual gas of a PSA H.sub.2 (12) is separated by permeation in order to reduce the hydrocarbon content thereof and the hydrocarbon-purified gas is separated at a low temperature to produce a carbon dioxide-rich liquid (22).

A system for recovering natural gas liquid from a source, comprising: a heat exchanger for cooling wellstream fluid directed therethrough; a first separator for receiving the fluid from the heat exchanger for separating liquid and gas; in a first configuration, the gas from the first separator being directed to a turbo-expander for reducing the temperature and pressure of the gas to form a cold fluid; the cold fluid being directed to a second separator for separating liquid and gas; gas from the second separator being directed to the heat exchanger where it flows therethrough for cooling the wellstream fluid; wherein if the turbo-expander is not operating, the first configuration may be a changed to a second configuration to bypass the turbo-expander and direct the gas from the second separator to a Joule-Thomson valve to form the cold fluid.

A method for producing methyl fluoride, comprising the steps of: (1) pyrolyzing a starting compound in a gas phase to thereby obtain a mixed gas containing methyl fluoride and acid fluoride; and (2) rectifying the mixed gas obtained in step (1) to thereby obtain methyl fluoride.

A cryogenic air separation setup in a cold box, wherein gaseous oxygen under elevated pressure is produced through hydraulic force caused by the geodetic distance between where liquid oxygen is drawn from the distillation column and where liquid oxygen is vaporized to form gaseous oxygen, such as in an auxiliary evaporator. To increase the vertical distance between the above-mentioned two location, the components are arranged directly below one another in the following sequence: the lower-pressure column, the main condenser evaporator, the higher-pressure column, the subcooler, the main heat exchanger and the auxiliary evaporator). In particular, the main heat-exchanger is positioned with the cold-end on the top to optimize piping expenditure.

A system and method for removing nitrogen from natural gas using two fractionating columns, that may be stacked, and a plurality of separators and heat exchangers, with horsepower requirements that are 50-80% of requirements for prior art systems. The fractionating columns operate at different pressures. A feed stream is separated with a vapor portion feeding the first column to produce a first column bottoms stream that is split into multiple portions at different pressures and first column overhead stream that is split or separated into two portions at least one of which is subcooled prior to feeding the top of the second column. Optional heat exchange between first column and second column streams provides first column reflux and reboil heat for a second column ascending vapor stream. Three sales gas streams are produced, each at a different pressure.

A process for separating carbon dioxide from a waste gas of a fluid catalytic cracking installation including converting at least a portion of the carbon monoxide of the waste gas into carbon dioxide to form a flow enriched in carbon dioxide, separating at least a portion of the flow enriched in carbon dioxide to form a gas enriched in carbon dioxide and depleted in nitrogen and a gas rich in nitrogen and depleted in carbon dioxide, and at least a portion of the gas enriched in carbon dioxide and depleted in nitrogen is separated by way of separation at a temperature of less than 0° C. to form a fluid rich in carbon dioxide and a fluid depleted in carbon dioxide and sending a gas containing at least 90% oxygen to combustion.

A process for the separation of nitrogen from a feed stream containing at least methane and nitrogen, with a methane content between 4 and 12% mol. consists of at least the following steps: separation of the feed stream by means of a rubbery-type membrane to produce a permeate enriched in methane at a pressure greater than 2 bara and a non-permeate which is a nitrogen-enriched residue gas at a pressure greater than 2 bara and processing of the high-pressure residue gas in a cryogenic separation unit to produce a methane rich liquid and a nitrogen-enriched gas wherein the pressure of the membrane permeate is controlled as a function of the nitrogen concentration in the nitrogen-enriched gas.