NITROGEN-PRODUCTION FROM AIR BY PRESSURE SWING ADSORPTION (PSA)

Air separation is one of the most important applications of Pressure S wing Adsorption (PSA) technology. Two types of PSA process are in comm on use, depending on whether oxygen or nitrogen is required as the pur e product. Oxygen production processes use a nitrogen selective adsorb ent in which the selectivity depends on a difference in the equilibriu m affinities. Nitrogen production processes use a kinetically selectiv e Carbon Molecular Sieve (CMS) adsorbent which adsorbes oxygen more ra pidly than nitrogen. in this paper a brief review of the results got i n recent experimental studies on the sorption kinetics of oxygen from air by CMS used PSA process simple and improved is presented. Romanian bituminous coal was used as carbon precursor for preparation of CMS. The influence of the flow rates on the performance of a PSA nitrogen r ecovery from air is discussed.