How Does Gas Separation Work and What is It For?

Industrial processes are often far beyond the understanding of those outside of the relevant industries – after all, why would you need to know exactly how a cooling tower works if you’re never going to set foot within a power plant? 

However, if you’re managing or designing an industrial facility (or if you’re just interested) learning about the mechanics behind the industrial processes behind power production and other industries is important. Gas separation is one such process which has many applications.

We’ve all heard of most of the common gases that surround us every day; Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide, Methane, and Nitrogen to name just a few. But they aren’t all dancing around neatly delineated and keeping to themselves – they mix together, creating a gas soup. Sometimes, just one type of gas is desirable or necessary for a certain reason, and it needs to be extracted from the mixture.

The process of gas separation does what it says on the tin; a mixture of gases becomes separated into distinct gases. This can be done in a number of ways, the most common of which is distillation – but other processes such as membrane driven separation in which the particles of one gas are absorbed through a membrane which the particles of another gas cannot fit through, are also used. Other methods include cryogenic distillation, temperature swing, and pressure swing.

Gas separation is a useful industrial process which can be applied in many different areas. For example it can be used to produce oxygen enriched air, or for separating CO2 from natural gas. Such a process is commonly found within the fossil fuel industries, and it can be highly energy intensive in and of itself. Gas separation is important for many processes including more progressive technologies such as the production of biofuel and air clarification.

The Applications of Gas Separation

Climate Change

One exciting application of gas separation methods is its potential use to capture carbon dioxide before it’s released into the atmosphere, for example by separating it from waste flue gases as they exit an industrial site. Carbon capture is an evolving technology but it has potential to be extremely effective in helping to fight climate change as it makes it possible to capture and store the potent greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, before it is released into the atmosphere. It may also be possible to apply similar technology to capturing and storing methane, another greenhouse gas 25 times more potent even than CO2.

Chemical Processes

Widely speaking, the most useful application of gas separation is to provide pure gases for use in other projects – for example, hydrogen is necessary in many industrial processes and it can be obtained through effective gas separation. Similarly, oxygen enriched air is in high demand for many industrial and chemical processes.

The Fossil Fuel Industry

Ironically for a process with such eco-friendly potential, gas separation is widely used in the fossil fuel industry. In this context, it is used to remove acidic gases from natural gas. It’s also used to separate other hydrocarbon products such as ethane, propane, butane, and pentane from within the substance, as well as gasoline.

Air Cooling in Gas Separation

‘Air separation’ is a particular subset of gas separation, in which the gas in the air is cooled until it liquefies. At this point, the liquid can be distilled to release the desired components of the gas. This process is commonly used to produce high-purity gases, and has been since the twentieth century.

To use this method of gas separation, a very specific and controlled combination of heat exchangers, isolation towers and cooling towers is necessary, and it’s important to look into the very best Industrial Cooling Solutions which can provide you with the equipment necessary to safely and reliably distill gases and produce high purity gases – otherwise, you won’t get the results you’re looking for and will waste a huge amount of energy.

Cooling towers are carefully constructed to speed up the cooling process without wasting any desirable gases or liquid which can be captured or reused, so they are a vital aspect of gas separation. Getting it right can be the difference between a successful and unsuccessful gas separation process.

The industrial world is filled with volatile ingredients and a need to use certain gases like hydrogen and nitrogen is part and parcel. The world is rife with these invisible substances – but they almost always come all mixed up together. Gas separation is, as the name implies, the process of separating this mixture of gases to extract valuable, high purity substances – from ingredients in industrial processes such as oxygen enriched air to high-ticket hydrocarbon products such as propane and butane.  It also has great potential to effectively fight climate change through innovative carbon capture technology. There are many different processes used to separate gases, but in air separation, maintaining the right temperature and particularly enacting effective cooling is vital to a successful gas separation process.

The post How Does Gas Separation Work and What is It For? first appeared on Feedster.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/business/how-does-gas-separation-work-and-what-is-it-for/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-does-gas-separation-work-and-what-is-it-for