Describe how to separate nitrogen from a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen, give a description of the procedure used and explain why this method works
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Answer:
How to Separate Nitrogen from Air – Nitrogen Extraction from Air
how do you separate nitrogen from air?
The widespread use of nitrogen in industrial processes makes it vital for operators to understand and employ the most efficient nitrogen generation techniques. While nitrogen occurs freely in nature, it is not readily available in its most useful form. Nitrogen is typically mixed with other component gases of air that may have an undesirable effect on industrial manufacturing processes.
Manufacturers have learned how to separate nitrogen and oxygen from atmospheric air to take advantage of nitrogen gas benefits. As a key player in the membrane and adsorption technological space, GENERON provides top quality nitrogen extraction solutions guaranteed to generate high purity nitrogen gas that meets all industrial requirements.
Why Pursue Nitrogen Production from Air?
Nitrogen in its diatomic form is abundant in nature as a major component of air. Nitrogen constitutes approximately 78% (by volume) of air. This makes it a free, readily available source for nitrogen – eliminating the need for complex chemical synthesis.
How is nitrogen separated for industrial use? Extracting nitrogen from air is possible by forcing ambient air through several types of generation processes.
How to Separate Nitrogen from Air
There are three standard methods used to extract nitrogen from air listed below:
Cryogenic distillation
Pressure swing adsorption
Membrane nitrogen generation
All three techniques can be used to produce high purity nitrogen for industrial use.
Cryogenic Distillation
This specialized fractional distillation technique produces high-purity nitrogen. However, this is one of the more complicated examples of how to extract nitrogen from air.
The process involves pulling ambient air into the distillation setup using a compression device. The compressed air is then cooled to about 10°C before being passed through a series of filters to eliminate moisture, oil, water vapor, and other contaminants.
Once the air has been cleaned, it is channeled through a heat exchanger to an expansion engine. The rapid expansion of the compressed gas within the engine will cause its temperature to fall below its condensation point (approximately -195.8°C within 1 atmosphere of pressure) and liquefy. Once liquefaction is achieved, a high purity fraction of nitrogen is distilled out of the air and channeled to storage units