Oxygen separation from air by PSA: modelling and experimental results PartI: isothermal operation

This work presents an experimental and simulation study of a pressure swing adsorption (PSA) unit running a traditional Skarstrom cycle and a Skarstro m cycle with co-current equalisation for the oxygen separation from air usi ng a 5A zeolite, The effects of production pressure, purge and product flow rates, and production step duration on the product purity and recovery are Studied for both cycles and compared, The Skarstrom cycle with co-current e qualisation proved to perform better than the traditional Skarstrom cycle, e.g. for the same operating conditions it gives better product purities and recoveries. Nevertheless, both cycles present the same general trend as a function of the operating conditions. The PSA/LDF-DG model is employed to s imulate both PSA cycles, This model considers a linear driving force repres entation of the dusty gas intraparticle mass transport model. Within the ra nge of tested conditions, it was found that the model can predict reasonabl y well the product concentration time evolution for the cyclic steady state and for the unsteady state, for both cycles. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V . All rights reserved.