JP4481112B2 - Pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method and apparatus - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention is a method for separating and recovering a high value-added gas with a high concentration and a high recovery rate from a mixed gas containing a high value-added gas such as krypton or xenon, for example, a plasma sputtering apparatus, a plasma oxidation apparatus, a plasma nitridation, etc. Separation of high value-added gas in exhaust gas discharged from manufacturing equipment (hereinafter simply referred to as manufacturing equipment) that manufactures semiconductor manufacturing equipment such as equipment, plasma CVD equipment, and reactive ion etching equipment, and display equipment such as liquid crystal displays The present invention relates to a pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method and apparatus for collecting and supplying to the manufacturing facility.

  In a process of manufacturing a semiconductor product such as a semiconductor integrated circuit, a liquid crystal panel, a solar battery panel, or a magnetic disk, various processes are performed by plasma generated by high frequency discharge in a rare gas atmosphere. Conventionally, argon has been used in such treatment, but in recent years, krypton and xenon have attracted attention in order to perform more advanced treatment. However, krypton and xenon are extremely expensive gases due to the abundance ratio in the air and the complexity of the separation process, and there is a problem that the cost is significantly increased when the krypton and xenon are used as the atmospheric gas and then released to the outside. In order to make a process using such a gas economically feasible, it is extremely important to collect used rare gas at 99% or more and circulate it. Furthermore, in order to reuse the collected rare gas, a concentration of at least 99.9% is required.

  The exhaust gas from these production facilities mainly consists of an atmospheric gas and a purge gas introduced when the production facility is evacuated. Further, in addition to the above gas, a gas added according to a semiconductor manufacturing method, for example, oxygen for forming an oxide film, nitrogen and hydrogen for forming a nitride film, or metal hydrogen for ammonia or plasma CVD. In the case of fluoride gas and reactive ion etching, halogenated hydrocarbon gas, helium, nitrogen and the like are included. Furthermore, water, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, NOx, hydrocarbons and the like are included as reaction byproducts of the plasma treatment.

  As a method for recovering a target component from a mixed gas, there is a pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation (PSA) method. Typical examples using the pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation method include oxygen PSA and nitrogen PSA. These typical PSA adsorbs and removes easily adsorbed components and collects hardly adsorbed components as a product. Oxygen PSA uses zeolite as an adsorbent, removes nitrogen as an easily adsorbed component, and recovers oxygen as an hardly adsorbed component. In nitrogen PSA, CMS (carbon molecular sieve) or the like is used as an adsorbent, oxygen that is an easily adsorbed component is removed, and nitrogen that is an hardly adsorbed component is recovered. In these typical PSA, the target component (hard adsorption component) can be made high in concentration, but in the desorption process, the hard adsorption component remaining in the adsorbent as an adsorbent void or a co-adsorption component is easily adsorbed component. In addition, since the exhaust gas is exhausted, the target component (hardly adsorbed component) cannot be recovered at a high recovery rate. In order to recover the target component at a high concentration and high recovery rate, it is necessary not only to concentrate the target component but also to reduce the target component contained in the exhaust gas as much as possible. That is, in the case of a mixed gas composed of two components, a gas separation method capable of recovering each component with a high concentration and a high recovery rate is required.

As a method for collecting a plurality of components from a mixed gas, for example, a PSA method using a cocurrent purge gas is disclosed in US Pat. No. 4,599,094 by Werner et al.
In the Werner et al. PSA method, the easily adsorbed component and the hardly adsorbed component in the raw material gas are simultaneously recovered as a product. For example, if the raw material gas is air, the easy adsorbing component nitrogen and the hardly adsorbed component are collected. Both oxygen can be recovered as a product. That is, first, air is supplied to the lower part of the adsorption cylinder at a high pressure, nitrogen that is an easily adsorbed component is adsorbed, and oxygen that is a hardly adsorbed component is derived from the upper part of the adsorbing cylinder. The supply of air is stopped before the air adsorption zone reaches the upper part of the adsorption cylinder, and then high-concentration nitrogen gas is supplied from the lower part of the adsorption cylinder as a cocurrent purge gas. The supply of the cocurrent purge gas is continued until the high-concentration nitrogen gas adsorption zone reaches around the air adsorption zone. During this time, oxygen is continuously derived from the top of the adsorption cylinder. By supplying this co-current purge gas, the inside of the adsorption cylinder is saturated with adsorption, which is an easily adsorbed component. Part of the oxygen derived from the upper part of the adsorption cylinder is recovered as a product, and the remaining gas is used as a countercurrent purge gas. Next, the nitrogen adsorbed on the adsorbent is depressurized countercurrently, and oxygen is introduced into the adsorption cylinder as a countercurrent purge gas, desorbed, and collected in a nitrogen storage tank. A part of the nitrogen recovered in the nitrogen product tank is recovered as a product, and the remaining gas is used as a cocurrent purge gas. The US patent shows that product nitrogen can be recovered at a concentration of 99.8% or more and an oxygen concentration of 90 to 93.6%.

Further, as an improved method of the PSA method disclosed in US Pat. No. 4,599,094 of Werner et al., US Pat. No. 4,810,265 by Lagree et al., US Pat. Japanese Patent No. 6,527,830 discloses a pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method in which the pressure equalization method in the process and the operating conditions are improved.
In these methods, the concentration of nitrogen, which is an easily adsorbed component, and the recovery rate can be increased, but oxygen, which is a difficultly adsorbed component, cannot be recovered at a concentration as high as that of the easily adsorbed component.

For this reason, the PSA method using Duplex PSA is a method for recovering a plurality of easily adsorbed components and hard adsorbed components at a high concentration from a mixed gas. US Pat. No. 5,085,674 by Leavitt et al. And in US Pat. No. 6,500,235 to Zhong et al.
This Duplex PSA method supplies a raw material gas to the middle of the adsorption cylinder, performs a typical PSA method (PSA process for condensing difficult adsorption components) at the upper part of the adsorption cylinder, and Wilson's US Patent No. The present invention is characterized in that the reverse PSA method (PSA method for concentrating easily adsorbed components) described in US Pat. No. 4,359,328 is performed.

In the Duplex PSA method, the difficult adsorption component obtained from the upper part of the high-pressure adsorption cylinder is decompressed and introduced into the low-pressure adsorption cylinder, and the easy adsorption component obtained from the lower part of the low-pressure adsorption cylinder is pressurized to pressurize the high-pressure adsorption cylinder. To introduce. That is, gas is circulated between the high-pressure and low-pressure adsorption cylinders. Thereby, it is possible to concentrate the hard-adsorbing component in the upper part of the adsorption cylinder and the easy-adsorbing component in the lower part of the adsorption cylinder.
The source gas is introduced into the middle part of the adsorption cylinder, and the product gas collects a part of the reflux gas at the top of the adsorption cylinder as a product of difficult adsorption components and a part of the reflux gas at the bottom of the adsorption cylinder as easy adsorption components. Collect as a product. By this Duplex PSA method, both the easily adsorbed component and the hardly adsorbed component can be recovered at a high concentration and a high recovery rate.
However, when hydrogen and helium are contained in the raw material gas, hydrogen and helium are the strongest hardly adsorbing components that are hardly adsorbed by the adsorbent. Therefore, in the Duplex PSA method, hydrogen and helium are mixed in the easily adsorbing component products. There is an inconvenience.

Furthermore, in addition to the PSA gas separation method described above, as a method for recovering the target component at a high concentration and a high recovery rate, a PSA method combining an equilibrium separation type PSA method and a velocity separation type PSA method is disclosed in Kawai et al. A method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-126435 has been proposed.
In this pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation method, two components can be recovered as a product by combining two typical PSA methods (concentrating hardly adsorbed components). For example, when a mixed gas of krypton and nitrogen is used as a raw material gas, nitrogen which is a hardly adsorbable component is recovered by an equilibrium separation type PSA using krypton as an easily adsorbed component and nitrogen as a hardly adsorbed component. In addition, krypton, which is a hard-to-adsorb component, is recovered by a speed separation type PSA using krypton as a hard-to-adsorb component and nitrogen as a readily-adsorbing component.

By using adsorbents having different properties in this way and crossing the easily adsorbed component and the hardly adsorbed component, nitrogen and krypton can be collected at a high concentration at the same time. Furthermore, since all the exhaust gas from each PSA apparatus is recovered in the buffer tank, mixed with the raw material gas, and supplied again to each PSA apparatus, the Kawai et al. Method uses a mixed gas of krypton and nitrogen with a krypton concentration of 99. It is shown that it can be recovered at a nitrogen concentration of 97-99.9%.
However, when hydrogen and helium, which are hard-to-adsorb components, are contained in the raw material gas, krypton is recovered by using the PSA method that recovers the hard-to-adsorb components, thus preventing the entry of hydrogen and helium to the krypton side. I can't.
US Pat. No. 4,599,094 U.S. Pat. No. 4,810,265 US Pat. No. 6,527,830 US Pat. No. 5,085,674 US Pat. No. 6,500,235 U.S. Pat. No. 4,359,328 JP 2002-126435 A

In order to recover and reuse the target component from the exhaust gas, it is necessary to remove unnecessary components such as a small amount of impurities, reaction by-products, and purge gas contained in the recovered mixed gas. However, as described above, since there are many cases where there are a plurality of unnecessary components contained in the exhaust gas, it is not easy to recover a high value-added component at a high concentration and a high recovery rate.
However, it is possible to easily select an equilibrium separation type adsorbent that easily absorbs krypton and xenon from other components such as helium, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and argon contained in the exhaust gas. In addition, when a component having a small molecular diameter such as hydrogen or helium is not included, krypton and xenon have a molecular diameter larger than oxygen, nitrogen, argon, etc. For example, by using Na-A-type zeolite, CMS, etc., a rate separation type adsorbent that is difficult to adsorb to krypton and xenon and easy to adsorb to nitrogen, oxygen, and argon is selected. Can do.

  Therefore, the simplest method is to concentrate target components such as krypton and xenon as easily adsorbed components and exhaust other components together as difficultly adsorbed components, or concentrate the target components as difficultly adsorbed components, It is desirable to use a gas separation method in which the components are exhausted together as easily adsorbed components. In addition, in order to recover the target component at a high concentration and high recovery rate, if the target component is an easily adsorbed component, the amount of the easily adsorbed component contained in the hardly adsorbed component is very small, and the target component is a hardly adsorbed component. For example, there is a need for a gas separation method in which the amount of hardly adsorbed component contained in the easily adsorbed component is small, that is, a gas separation method capable of concentrating the easily adsorbed component and the hardly adsorbed component at a high concentration simultaneously.

  However, in the PSA method proposed in US Pat. No. 4,599,094 of Werner et al. Described above, the easily adsorbed component can be made to have a relatively high concentration. Is insufficient. Further, in the Duplex PSA method, it is easy to concentrate the hardly adsorbed component, but it is difficult to concentrate the easily adsorbed component to 99.9% or more. Therefore, in the prior art, there has been no gas separation method that recovers an easily adsorbed component or a hardly adsorbed component with a high concentration and a high recovery rate, that is, matches the purpose of this patent.

  Therefore, in the present invention, high value-added gas is recovered at a high concentration and high recovery rate from a mixed gas containing high value-added gas such as krypton and xenon, which is used as an atmospheric gas in a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus or the like. It is an object of the present invention to provide a pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method and apparatus that enable the above.

To solve the above problem,
The invention according to claim 1 includes an adsorbent and
Using a source gas containing an easily adsorbing component that is easily adsorbing to this adsorbent and a difficultly adsorbing component that is hardly adsorbing to the adsorbent,
Using a separation apparatus comprising a lower cylinder, an upper cylinder filled with the adsorbent, a source gas storage tank for storing at least the source gas, and an easily adsorbed component storage tank for storing the easily adsorbed component; A pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation method for recovering the easily adsorbed component and the hardly adsorbed component from
(A) The gas in the raw material gas storage tank is pressurized and introduced into the lower cylinder, the easily adsorbed component in the gas is adsorbed on the adsorbent, and the gas from which the easily adsorbed component is reduced from the lower cylinder is Introducing into the cylinder, adsorbing the easily adsorbed component contained in the gas using the adsorbent of the upper cylinder, and collecting the hardly adsorbed component flowing out from the upper cylinder;
(B) Pressurizing the gas in the easy adsorption component storage tank and introducing it into the lower cylinder, and the difficult adsorption component co-adsorbed on the adsorbent in the lower cylinder and the difficult adsorption component remaining in the gap between the adsorbents in the upper cylinder a step of deriving, by adsorbing readily adsorbable component contained in the gas flowing in from the bottom tube to the adsorbent of the upper tube, to recover the less readily adsorbable component flowing out from the upper tube in,
(C) Depressurizing the lower cylinder , desorbing the easily adsorbed component adsorbed on the adsorbent of the lower cylinder , and collecting the easily adsorbed component that has been desorbed in the easily adsorbed component storage tank;
And (d) an upper cylinder under vacuum, to desorb the adsorbed gas to the adsorbent of the upper cylinder, the gas that has been desorbed into the lower tube, to recover the gas which has flowed out from the lower cylinder to the material gas storage tank process When,
(E) The hardly adsorbed component recovered in the above steps (a) and (b) is introduced into the upper cylinder as a countercurrent purge gas, and the easily adsorbed component adsorbed on the adsorbent in the upper cylinder is replaced and desorbed and flows out from the upper cylinder. Introducing the gas coming into the lower cylinder, replacing and desorbing easily adsorbed components adsorbed on the adsorbent in the lower cylinder with the gas introduced into the lower cylinder, and recovering the gas flowing out from the lower cylinder to the source gas storage tank Have
(F) Pressure fluctuation characterized by simultaneously recovering the easily adsorbed component and the hardly adsorbed component in the raw material gas by sequentially repeating the steps (a) to (e) based on a predetermined sequence. This is an adsorption gas separation method.

As an invention according to claim 2, the step (b) uses at least two lower cylinders and an upper cylinder,
(G) The upper cylinder that has completed the process of (a) is communicated with the other upper cylinder that has completed the process of (e), and the gas in the upper cylinder that has completed the process of (a) is (e) Introducing the gas in the lower cylinder after completing the step (a) into the upper cylinder after completing the step (a), and introducing the gas in the easily adsorbable component storage tank into the upper cylinder after completing the step (a) Including the step of introducing into the lower cylinder,
The step (e) uses at least two lower cylinders and an upper cylinder,
(H) The upper cylinder that has completed the step (e) is communicated with the other upper cylinder that has completed the step (b), and the gas in the upper cylinder that has completed the step (b) Introducing the gas in the upper cylinder after completing the step (e) into the lower cylinder after completing the step (e),
The pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation method according to claim 1, wherein

As an invention according to claim 3, the step (b) uses at least two lower cylinders and an upper cylinder,
(I) The upper cylinder that has completed the step (b) is communicated with the other upper cylinder that has completed the step (e), and the gas in the upper cylinder that has completed the step (b) is (e) Introducing the gas in the lower cylinder, which has been completed in step (b), into the upper cylinder in which the process in (b) has been completed, Including the step of introducing into the lower cylinder,
The step (e) uses at least two lower cylinders and an upper cylinder,
(J) The upper cylinder that has completed the step (e) is communicated with the other upper cylinder that has completed the step (b), and the gas in the upper cylinder that has completed the step (b) The method further comprises a step of introducing the gas in the upper cylinder after the step (e) into the lower cylinder after the step (e). The pressure fluctuation adsorption-type gas separation method described in 1).

The invention according to claim 4 is characterized in that the adsorbent is an adsorbent that separates into an easily adsorbed component and a hardly adsorbed component based on a difference in equilibrium adsorption amount. This is a pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method.
As an invention according to claim 5, an adsorbent that separates into an easily adsorbed component and a hardly adsorbed component based on the difference in equilibrium adsorption amount is activated carbon, Na-X zeolite, Ca-X zeolite, Ca-A zeolite, 5. The pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation method according to claim 4, wherein the gas separation method is selected from the group of Li-X zeolite.
The invention according to claim 6 is characterized in that the easily adsorbed component is xenon or krypton, and the hardly adsorbed component is a gas containing any of oxygen, nitrogen, argon, hydrogen, and helium. The pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method according to claim 5 is used.

The invention according to claim 7 is characterized in that the adsorbent is an adsorbent that separates into an easily adsorbed component and a hardly adsorbed component based on a difference in adsorption speed. This is the pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method described.
The invention according to claim 8 is characterized in that the pore size of the adsorbent adsorbent that is separated into the easily adsorbed component and the hardly adsorbed component based on the difference in adsorption speed is about 0.4 nm. This is a pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method.
The invention according to claim 9 is characterized in that the hardly adsorbing component is xenon or krypton, and the easily adsorbing component is a gas containing any of oxygen, nitrogen, and argon. This is the pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method described.

The invention according to claim 10 is an apparatus for separating main components from a raw material gas comprising a mixed gas containing at least two main components using a pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation method,
A lower cylinder filled with at least one kind of adsorbent which has an easy adsorptivity to at least one main component of the raw material gas and has a hard adsorbability to at least one main component of the raw material gas. And an upper cylinder, a raw material gas storage tank for introducing the raw material gas, an easy adsorption component storage tank for storing a main component that exhibits easy adsorption to the adsorbent, and a main that exhibits poor adsorption to the adsorbent. A hard-to-adsorb component storage tank for storing components, a compressor for compressing a gas discharged from the raw material gas storage tank or the easy-adsorption component storage tank , and a main component that exhibits an easy-adsorption property to the adsorbent in the lower part A pipe for supplying source gas or main components exhibiting easy adsorption from the source gas storage tank or the easily adsorbed component storage tank to the lower cylinder via the compressor when adsorbing to the cylinder and the upper tower And the lower cylinder and the front The pipe that connects the upper cylinder, the pipe that connects the upper cylinder and the hard-to-adsorb component storage tank, and the easy adsorption that is depressurized and adsorbed to the adsorbent filled in the lower cylinder In the step of desorbing the main component exhibiting the property, the desorbed high-purity main component exhibiting the easy adsorption property is returned from the lower tube to the easy adsorption component storage tank, and the upper tube is decompressed. In the step of desorbing the gas adsorbed by the adsorbent filled in the upper cylinder, the desorbed gas is introduced into the lower cylinder, and the gas containing the easily adsorbed component flowing out from the lower cylinder is supplied to the source gas storage tank. The pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation device is provided with a recovery pipe .

The invention according to claim 11 is characterized in that the raw material gas storage tank or the easily adsorbed component storage tank has a mechanism for replenishing easily adsorbed components from the outside. This is a gas separation device.
The invention according to claim 12 is characterized in that the raw material gas storage tank or the hardly adsorbed component storage tank has a mechanism for replenishing the hardly adsorbed component from the outside. This is a gas separation device.

The pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation according to claim 10, wherein the adsorbent is an adsorbent that separates into an easily adsorbed component and a hardly adsorbed component based on a difference in equilibrium adsorption amount. It is a device.
As an invention according to claim 14, an adsorbent that is separated into an easily adsorbed component and a hardly adsorbed component based on a difference in equilibrium adsorption amount is activated carbon, Na-X zeolite, Ca-X zeolite, Ca-A zeolite, Li The pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation device according to claim 13, which is any one selected from the group of -X zeolite.

The invention according to claim 15 is the pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation device according to claim 10, wherein the adsorbent is an adsorbent that separates into an easily adsorbed component and a hardly adsorbed component based on an adsorption rate difference. It is what.
16. The pressure fluctuation adsorption according to claim 15, wherein the pore size of the adsorbent that is separated into the easily adsorbed component and the hardly adsorbed component based on the difference in adsorption rate is about 0.4 nm. This is a gas separation device.

  In the pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation method and apparatus of the present invention, an expensive target component can be efficiently recovered from a mixed gas discharged from a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus or the like with a high concentration and a high recovery rate. Therefore, it can be reused as an atmospheric gas used in a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus or the like, and the cost can be greatly reduced.

The pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation apparatus for carrying out the pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation method of the present invention.
This pressure fluctuation adsorption-type gas separation device is a raw material gas that stores an easy-adsorption component that exhibits an easy-adsorption property with respect to a certain adsorbent, and a raw material gas that includes at least a difficult-adsorption component that exhibits an easy-adsorption property with respect to this adsorbent. The gas of the storage tank 1, the easy adsorption component storage tank 2 which stores an easy adsorption component, the difficult adsorption component storage tank 3 which stores a difficult adsorption component, and the raw material gas storage tank 1 or the easy adsorption component storage tank 2 is compressed. The compressor 4, the compressor 5 that compresses the gas in the easily adsorbable component storage tank 2, and the four adsorption cylinders of the lower cylinders 10 </ b> B and 11 </ b> B and the upper cylinders 10 </ b> U and 11 </ b> U are provided.

Reference numeral L <b> 1 is a path for introducing the source gas into the source gas storage tank 1.
Reference numeral L <b> 2 is a path for leading the gas in the raw material gas storage tank 1 to the compressor 4.
Reference numeral L <b> 3 is a path for deriving the gas in the easily adsorbed component storage tank 2 to the compressor 4.
Reference numerals L4 and L5 are paths for introducing the gas from the compressor 4 into the lower cylinders 10B and 11B. Reference symbol L6 is a path for introducing the gas from the upper cylinders 10U and 11U into the hardly adsorbed component storage tank 3 or leading the gas from the hardly adsorbed component storage tank 3 to the upper cylinders 10U and 11U.
Reference symbol L7 is a path for supplying the hard-to-adsorb component from the hard-to-adsorb component storage tank 3 to the outside of the apparatus system.
Reference L8 is a path for introducing the hardly adsorbed component from the hardly adsorbed component storage tank 3 into the upper cylinders 10U and 11U as a countercurrent purge gas.

Reference numerals L9 and L10 are paths for returning the gas from the lower cylinders 10B and 11B to the raw material gas storage tank 1 or the easily adsorbed component storage tank 2.
Reference numeral L <b> 11 is a path for returning the gas from the lower cylinders 10 </ b> B and 11 </ b> B to the source gas storage tank 1.
Reference numeral L <b> 12 is a path for returning the gas from the lower cylinders 10 </ b> B and 11 </ b> B to the easily adsorbable component storage tank 2.
Symbol L13 is a path for supplying the easily adsorbed component from the easily adsorbed component storage tank 2 to the outside of the apparatus system.
Reference numeral L14 is a pressure equalization line that performs pressure equalization between the upper cylinders 10U and 11U.

  The lower cylinders 10B and 11B and the upper cylinders 10U and 11U have an easily or hardly adsorbing property with respect to a target component in the raw material gas, and a hardly adsorbing component or an easily absorbing component with respect to components other than the target component. An adsorbent having adsorptivity is used.

Next, an example of an embodiment of the pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation method of the present invention will be described using the pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation apparatus. In the pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation method of this embodiment, an example in which a mixed gas containing xenon as a main component and nitrogen as another main component will be described as a raw material gas.
Moreover, the case where activated carbon which is an equilibrium separation type adsorbent is used as the adsorbent filled in the lower cylinders 10B and 11B and the upper cylinders 10U and 11U is shown. Activated carbon has the property that the adsorption amount of xenon is large (easy adsorption property) and the nitrogen adsorption amount is small (difficult adsorption property) as the equilibrium adsorption amount. Therefore, in this example, xenon is an easily adsorbed component and nitrogen is a hardly adsorbed component.

  FIG. 2 shows a half-cycle process of this pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method, and it is composed of two processes of <adsorption process>-<rinsing process> as shown below. The valve open / close state in each process is operated as shown in Table 1.

(1) <Adsorption process>
The mixed gas from the raw material gas storage tank 1 is compressed by the compressor 4 and supplied to the lower cylinder 10B via the paths L2 and L4. At the same time, nitrogen stored in the hardly adsorbed component storage tank 3 is introduced into the upper tube 10U via the path L6 (the valve V7 is closed and the pressure can be increased by supplying only the mixed gas from the source gas storage tank 1). it can).
Since the lower cylinder 10B and the upper cylinder 10U are circulated by opening the valve V5, the pressure in the lower cylinder 10B and the upper cylinder 10U increases substantially in the same manner. The mixed gas in the raw material gas storage tank 1 is a mixed gas of the raw material gas introduced from the path L1 and the gas discharged from the lower cylinder 10B or 11B in the upper cylinder depressurization process and the purge regeneration process described later.

  As the mixed gas supplied to the lower cylinder 10B proceeds to the upper part of the lower cylinder 10B, xenon is preferentially adsorbed and nitrogen is concentrated in the gas phase. The concentrated nitrogen is introduced into the upper cylinder 10U from the lower cylinder 10B, and a trace amount of xenon contained in the nitrogen is further adsorbed in the upper cylinder 10U. After the pressure in the upper cylinder 10U becomes higher than the pressure in the hard-to-adsorb component storage tank 3, the nitrogen further concentrated in the upper cylinder 10U is led to the hard-to-adsorb component storage tank 3 through the path L6. The nitrogen in the hardly adsorbed component storage tank 3 is discharged out of the apparatus system from the path L7 according to the flow rate of nitrogen contained in the raw material gas, and the remaining gas is used as a countercurrent purge gas in the purge regeneration process. .

(2) <Rinse process>
By closing the valve V1 and opening the valve V2, the gas introduced into the lower tube 10B is changed to xenon in the easily adsorbable component storage tank 2. By introducing xenon from the easily adsorbable component storage tank 2 into the lower cylinder 10B, the nitrogen co-adsorbed in the adsorbent packed layer of the lower cylinder 10B and the nitrogen present in the adsorbent gap are pushed out to the upper cylinder 10U, The inside of the cylinder 10B is adsorbed and saturated with xenon. During this time, the derivation of nitrogen from the upper cylinder 10U to the hardly adsorbed component storage tank 3 is continued. A part of the nitrogen in the hardly adsorbed component storage tank 3 is discharged out of the apparatus system as in the <Adsorption Step> of (1), and the remaining gas is used as a countercurrent purge gas.

  FIG. 3 shows the process of the other half cycle of this pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation method. As shown below, <lower cylinder decompression process>-<upper cylinder decompression process>-<purge regeneration process > 3 steps. Note that while the lower cylinder 10B and the upper cylinder 10U perform the previous two steps shown in FIG. 2, the lower cylinder 11B and the upper cylinder 11U perform the three processes shown in FIG. Then, the open / closed state of the valve in each step of FIG.

(3) <Lower cylinder decompression process>
The valves V6 and V10 are closed, and the valves V11 and V13 are opened. As a result, the xenon adsorbed to the lower cylinder 11B during the steps (1) to (2) is easily adsorbed via the paths L10 and L12 due to the differential pressure between the lower cylinder 11B and the easily adsorbable component storage tank 2. It is recovered into the component storage tank 2. The xenon recovered in the easily adsorbed component storage tank 2 is pressurized by the compressor 5 at a flow rate corresponding to the xenon contained in the raw material gas, and is collected as a product from the path L13. The remaining xenon is used as a cocurrent purge gas in the <rinsing step> of (2). During this time, the upper cylinder 11U is in a resting state due to the valves V6 and V8 being closed.

(4) <Upper cylinder decompression process>
The valve V11 is closed and the valves V6 and V10 are opened. Then, since a pressure difference is generated between the upper cylinder 11U that has been stopped in the <lower cylinder depressurization step> in (3) and the lower cylinder 11B that has been depressurized, the gas in the upper cylinder 11U flows into the lower cylinder 11B. To do. The gas introduced into the lower cylinder 11B is recovered in the raw material gas storage tank 1 via the paths L10 and L11 while purging the inside of the lower cylinder 11B. The gas recovered in the raw material gas storage tank 1 is remixed with the raw material gas introduced from the path L1, and is supplied to the lower cylinder again at the <adsorption step> in (1).

(5) <Purge regeneration process>
Open the valve V15. Nitrogen stored in the difficult-to-adsorb component storage tank 3 is introduced into the upper cylinder 11U through the path L8 as countercurrent purge gas. The nitrogen introduced into the upper cylinder 11U displaces and desorbs the adsorbed xenon as it proceeds to the lower part of the adsorption cylinder. The desorbed gas containing a relatively large amount of xenon is recovered in the source gas storage tank 1 via the lower cylinder 11B and the paths L10 and L11. The gas recovered in the raw material gas storage tank 1 is mixed with the raw material gas introduced from the path L1 in the same manner as in (4) <Upper cylinder depressurization process>, and again in the lower cylinder during (1) <Adsorption process>. Supplied.
Here, the nitrogen used for the countercurrent purge gas is the nitrogen derived from the upper cylinder 10U in (1) <adsorption process> or (2) <rinsing process> without passing through the difficult adsorption component storage tank 3, You may introduce directly into the upper cylinder which is performing (5) <purge regeneration process>.

By sequentially repeating the five steps described above in the lower cylinder 10B and the upper cylinder 10U, and in the lower cylinder 11B and the upper cylinder 11U, nitrogen concentration and xenon concentration can be continuously performed. While the lower cylinder 10B and the upper cylinder 10U are performing the steps (1) <adsorption process> to (2) <rinsing process>, the lower cylinder 11B and the upper cylinder 11U are (3) <lower cylinder decompression process>. Step (5) <Purge regeneration step> is performed. On the other hand, while the lower cylinder 10B and the upper cylinder 10U are performing the steps (3) <lower cylinder decompression process> to (5) <purge regeneration process>, the lower cylinder 11B and the upper cylinder 11U (1) < Adsorption process> to (2) <Rinse process> are performed.
The introduction of the source gas from the path L1, the discharge of nitrogen from the path L7, and the derivation of xenon from the path L13 are continuously performed regardless of the process. However, in the manufacturing equipment of semiconductor products or display devices to which this pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method is applied, there is no need to use xenon, that is, the exhaust gas from the manufacturing equipment that becomes the raw material gas does not flow in. Can happen frequently. In such a case, in this pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation device, nitrogen derived from the path L7 and xenon derived from the path L13 are always returned to the source gas storage tank 1 (not shown). While maintaining the state where product gas can be supplied, the supply can be stopped.

  Furthermore, as will be described below, pressurizing power can be saved by performing the pressure equalizing and reducing process after the rinsing process and the pressure equalizing and pressing process after the purge regeneration process.

(6) <equal pressure reduction process>
Valve V7 is closed and valve V9 is opened. The gas in the upper cylinder 10U is introduced into the upper cylinder 11U via the path L14 due to the pressure difference between the upper cylinders 10U and 11U (pressure equalization operation). As a result, the pressure in the upper cylinder 10U is lowered, so that the gas in the lower cylinder 10B is led out to the upper cylinder 10U. By this operation, nitrogen slightly remaining on the upper part of the adsorption cylinder of the lower cylinder 10B is swept away by the xenon desorbed by the reduced pressure and introduced into the upper cylinder 10U. During this time, the xenon supply from the easily adsorbed component storage tank 2 is continued.

(7) <equal pressure pressing process>
The valves V13 and V15 are closed and the valve V9 is opened. As a result, the gas in the upper cylinder 10U is introduced into the upper cylinder 11U (pressure equalizing operation). Since the gas introduced into the upper cylinder 11U has a high nitrogen concentration, the xenon in the upper cylinder 11U can be pushed down to the lower upper cylinder 11B and the lower cylinder 11B.

FIG. 4 shows a half cycle step of the pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method in which (6) <pressure equalization pressure reduction step> is added to (1) <adsorption step> to (2) <rinse step>. It is.
FIG. 5 shows the other half cycle process in which (7) <equal pressure pressurization process> is added to (3) <lower cylinder decompression process> to (5) <purge regeneration process>. .
In addition, while the lower cylinder 10B and the upper cylinder 10U perform the previous three processes shown in FIG. 4, the lower cylinder 11B and the upper cylinder 11U perform the four processes shown in FIG. The valve open / close state in each step of FIG. 4 or FIG. 5 is operated in a manner displayed in Table 3 or Table 4.

  By sequentially repeating the seven steps described above in the lower cylinder 10B and the upper cylinder 10U, and in the lower cylinder 11B and the upper cylinder 11U, nitrogen concentration and xenon concentration can be continuously performed. In addition, while the lower cylinder 10B and the upper cylinder 10U are performing the <adsorption process> to the <pressure equalization pressure reduction process>, the lower cylinder 11B and the upper cylinder 11U have the <lower cylinder pressure reduction process> to the <pressure equalization pressure process>. Done. On the other hand, while the lower tube 10B and the upper tube 10U are performing the <lower tube pressure reducing step> to the <pressure equalizing and pressing step>, the lower tube 11B and the upper tube 11U are <adsorbing step> to <the pressure equalizing and reducing step. > Is performed.

  Also, among the above seven steps, the <rinse step> can be omitted to make six steps.

The pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation apparatus of the present invention can recover xenon and the like supplied to the production facility and circulate them. Then, xenon is gradually reduced as xenon is accompanied by nitrogen discharged out of the system as exhaust gas from the circulation cycle formed by the pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation device and the manufacturing facility. Therefore, in order to perform long-term stable operation, it is necessary to replenish an amount corresponding to xenon accompanying nitrogen. Therefore, in this pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation apparatus, xenon is circulated by replenishing the source gas storage tank 1 or the easily adsorbed component storage tank 2 (not shown) from the outside such as a high concentration xenon filling cylinder. The cycle can always be stabilized and operated. Further, the source gas storage tank 1 can be supplemented with nitrogen as a hardly adsorbed component.

  In the operation of the pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation apparatus of the present invention, for example, the operation is performed by the normal pressure regeneration PSA method in which the easily adsorbed component is adsorbed under pressure and the easily adsorbed component is desorbed under normal pressure. However, this gas separation method can also be applied to a vacuum pressure fluctuation adsorption method (VPSA method) in which an easily adsorbed component is adsorbed under normal pressure and the easily adsorbed component is desorbed at a pressure below atmospheric pressure by a vacuum pump or the like.

An object of the present pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method is to provide a pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation separation method and apparatus capable of continuously collecting a target component at a high concentration and a high recovery rate. Hereinafter, the effectiveness of the present gas separation method for this purpose will be described in more detail.
Typical PSA method that removes easily adsorbed components and recovers difficultly adsorbed components as a product, reverse PSA method that removes difficultly adsorbed components and recovers easily adsorbed components as a product, Duplex PSA method that is a combination of these PSA methods, etc. In any method, the process of adsorbing the easily adsorbed component and desorbing the hardly adsorbed component (hereinafter, the process of adsorbing the easily adsorbed component is referred to as the “adsorption process”) is performed under pressure to adsorb the hardly adsorbed component. There is no difference in performing the step of desorbing the easily adsorbed component (hereinafter, the step of desorbing the easily adsorbed component is referred to as “regeneration step”) under reduced pressure.

  By performing the adsorption process under pressure, the gas flow rate in the adsorption cylinder is relatively slower than the regeneration process, and by performing the regeneration process under reduced pressure, the gas flow rate in the adsorption cylinder is relatively greater than that of the adsorption process. Get faster. Due to the difference in gas flow rate, the length of the adsorption band formed in the adsorption cylinder in each process changes. In the adsorption process where the gas flow rate is slow, the length of the adsorption zone can be made relatively short. However, in the regeneration process where the gas flow rate is fast, the length of the adsorption zone becomes relatively long. For this reason, in the Duplex PSA method in which both easy-adsorbing components and hard-adsorbing components are sampled simultaneously, it is relatively easy to collect a high-concentration hard-adsorbing component, but it is necessary to collect a high-concentration easily-adsorbing component. Was very difficult.

  Therefore, in order to collect an easily adsorbed component at a concentration as high as that of the hardly adsorbed component using the Duplex PSA method, the difference in gas flow rate between the adsorption process and the regeneration process is reduced, that is, the pressure of the adsorption process and the regeneration process. There was no means other than making the difference as small as possible. However, since this means leads to an increase in the size of the adsorption cylinder, it is necessary to make it economically feasible by making the concentration of the easily adsorbed component lower than the concentration of the hardly adsorbed component. That is, the easily adsorbed component could not be collected at the same high concentration as the hardly adsorbed component. Furthermore, when hydrogen and helium are included, hydrogen and helium are not adsorbed by the adsorbent, and therefore move faster in the adsorbent packed layer than other components. It was difficult to recover easily adsorbed components.

In the co-current purge process, the easily adsorbed component that is desorbed in the regeneration process is stored in the easily adsorbed component storage tank, and the adsorption cylinder that has completed the adsorption process is rinsed with the easily adsorbed component stored in the easily adsorbed component storage tank. This is a method of increasing the concentration of easily adsorbed components. In order to collect the easily adsorbed component at an extremely high concentration in the co-current purge process, before collecting the easily adsorbed component in the easily adsorbed component storage tank of the easily adsorbed component, In other words, it is necessary to allow the entire adsorption zone to flow out of the adsorption cylinder.
However, the operation of causing the adsorption zone to flow out of the adsorption cylinder leads to lowering the concentration of difficult-to-adsorb components or exhausting a mixed gas containing a large amount of both difficult-and-adsorbable components. A decrease in the recovery rate of adsorbed components is inevitable.
On the other hand, increasing the recovery rate of the easily adsorbed component can be easily realized by not letting the adsorption zone flow out of the adsorption cylinder, but in this case, the gas concentration of the easily adsorbed component is inevitably lowered. Therefore, it has been difficult to simultaneously collect the easily adsorbed component and the hardly adsorbed component at a high concentration even in the cocurrent purge process.

In this pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation method, first, in the <adsorption process>, the gas in the raw material gas storage tank 1 is pressurized by the compressor 4 and supplied to the lower cylinder. By carrying out under pressure, the easily adsorbed component contained in the supply gas is adsorbed by the adsorbent in the lower cylinder. That is, the easily adsorbed component in the source gas introduced into the source gas storage tank 1 and the easily adsorbed component returned during the <upper cylinder pressure reducing step> and <purge regeneration step> are adsorbed by the lower tube adsorbent. The
<Adsorption process> is performed until the first adsorption band formed with the gas concentration in the raw material gas storage tank 1 moves from the lower cylinder to the upper cylinder (see FIG. 6 “Adsorbent packed bed at the end of the adsorption process”). (See “Schematic diagram showing xenon concentration distribution”). Next, the gas supplied from the compressor 4 is switched to the gas in the easy-adsorption component storage tank 2 that stores the easy-adsorption component, and the <rinse process> is performed in which the easy-adsorption component is supplied to the lower cylinder.

  By supplying the easily adsorbing component, the hardly adsorbing component co-adsorbed on the adsorbent in the lower cylinder and the hardly adsorbing component existing in the adsorbent gap are pushed out to the upper part of the lower cylinder and the upper cylinder. <Rinse process> is continued until the second adsorption zone formed by the supply of the easily adsorbed component reaches the upper part of the lower cylinder ("Xenon concentration distribution of the adsorbent packed layer at the end of the rinse process in FIG. 7)" (Refer to the “Schematic diagram”). By this <rinsing step>, most of the lower cylinder can be filled with the easily adsorbed component.

  Next, a <equal pressure reduction process> is performed in which the gas in the upper cylinder is supplied to the other upper cylinder in which the regeneration process has been performed. By this operation, the gas adsorbed by the adsorbent is desorbed, and the desorbed gas is introduced from the lower cylinder to the upper cylinder and from the upper cylinder to the other upper cylinder. Due to the upward flow formed in this way, the hardly adsorbed component remaining in the upper part of the lower cylinder is moved to the upper cylinder by the desorbed easily adsorbed component, that is, the inside of the lower cylinder is almost completely easily adsorbed. It is saturated (see “schematic diagram showing xenon concentration distribution of adsorbent packed bed at the end of the pressure equalization and decompression step” in FIG. 8). This <pressure equalization pressure reduction process> is continued until the front part of the third adsorption zone formed by the first adsorbing zone and the second adsorbing zone joining together due to the rapid upward flow reaches the upper part of the upper cylinder. (See “Schematic diagram showing xenon concentration distribution of adsorbent packed bed at the end of pressure equalizing and depressurizing step” in FIG. 8).

  Through the series of operations described above, the inside of the lower cylinder can be almost completely saturated with the easily adsorbed component. The easily adsorbed component adsorbed in the lower cylinder is collected in the easily adsorbed component storage tank by the reduced pressure in the <lower cylinder depressurizing step>. A part of the gas collected in the easily adsorbed component storage tank is collected as product gas or exhaust gas, and the remaining gas is used as a cocurrent purge gas in the <rinsing step>. When collecting easily adsorbed components to the easily adsorbed component storage tank, the lower cylinder is completely filled with easily adsorbed components, and further, no purge operation with difficult adsorbed components is performed. Can be recovered in the easily adsorbed component storage tank.

  In the above-described <adsorption step>, <rinsing step>, and <equal pressure reduction step>, the easily adsorbed component that has flowed out into the upper tube 10U (or 11U) is adsorbed in the upper tube 10U (or 11U). Is adsorbed by. The easily adsorbed components adsorbed on the upper cylinder 10U (or 11U) are all recovered in the source gas storage tank 1 in the <upper cylinder decompression process> and the <purge regeneration process>. In the raw material gas storage tank 1, by introducing the raw material gas, an easily adsorbed component in the same amount as the easily adsorbed component collected from the easily adsorbed component storage tank 2 is replenished, and the lower cylinder that performs the <adsorption step> together with the hardly adsorbed component. It is supplied again to 10B (or 11B).

  In the <adsorption process> and the <rinse process>, the hardly adsorbed component is recovered from the upper cylinder 10U (or 11U) into the hardly adsorbed component storage tank 3. In the <adsorption process> and the <rinsing process>, the first adsorption band front part ends before reaching the upper part of the upper cylinder 10U (or 11U), so that it is difficult to be collected in the difficult adsorption component storage tank 3. The adsorbing component contains almost no easily adsorbing component. A part of the hardly adsorbed component collected in the hardly adsorbed component storage tank 3 is discharged out of the system as exhaust gas or product gas, and the remaining gas is used as countercurrent purge gas in the <purge regeneration step>. All hard-to-adsorb components introduced into the adsorption cylinder as countercurrent purge gas are recovered in the raw material gas storage tank 1. In the raw material gas storage tank 1, the introduction of the raw material gas is supplemented with almost the same amount of the hard adsorption component collected from the hard adsorption component storage tank 3, and the lower cylinder performing the <adsorption step> together with the easy adsorption component. It is supplied again to 10B (or 11B).

  As described above, it can be seen that in this pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method, an easily adsorbed component and a hardly adsorbed component can be collected at a high concentration at the same time. In addition, the easily adsorbed components discharged out of the apparatus system are only a few easily adsorbed components flowing out along with the hardly adsorbed components, and the hardly adsorbed components flowing out out of the apparatus system flow out along with the easily adsorbed components. Only hard-to-adsorb components. Therefore, it can be seen that the easily adsorbed component and the hardly adsorbed component can be recovered at an extremely high recovery rate at the same time.

In the above-described embodiment, an example in which a mixed gas of xenon as an easily adsorbed component and nitrogen as a hardly adsorbed component is used as a raw material gas. For example, when oxygen and argon are contained in the source gas in addition to xenon and nitrogen, xenon is contained in the easily adsorbed component storage tank 2, and nitrogen, oxygen, A mixed gas of argon can be recovered.
This is because activated carbon has almost the same amount of adsorption as oxygen with respect to oxygen and argon, so oxygen and argon are concentrated in the same manner as nitrogen. Further, when hydrogen and helium are contained in addition to xenon and nitrogen, since hydrogen and helium are not adsorbed by the activated carbon, they can be separated more easily than oxygen and argon. Therefore, xenon can be recovered in the easily adsorbed component storage tank 2, and a mixed gas of nitrogen, hydrogen, and helium, which are hardly adsorbed components, can be recovered in the hardly adsorbed component storage tank 3.

In the above embodiment, an example is shown in which activated carbon , which is an equilibrium separation type adsorbent, is used and xenon, which is the target component, is recovered as an easily adsorbed component with a high concentration and a high recovery rate. Is not limited to this.
The pressure fluctuation adsorption-type gas separation method of the present invention can collect the easily adsorbed component and the hardly adsorbed component at a high concentration and with a high recovery rate. In addition, the difficultly adsorbed component that is the target component can be recovered at a high concentration and a high recovery rate.
For example, when Na-A type zeolite, CMS, or the like, which is a rate separation type adsorbent having a pore size of about 0.4 nm, is used, this adsorbent has poor adsorptivity to krypton and xenon, and nitrogen, Easy adsorption to oxygen and argon. In this case, krypton and xenon which are target components can be recovered in the hardly adsorbed component storage tank 3, and nitrogen, oxygen and argon which are exhaust gases can be recovered in the easily adsorbed component storage tank 2.

As Example 1, an experiment was conducted to separate xenon using a mixed gas containing xenon and nitrogen as a raw material gas by the pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation apparatus shown in FIG.
As the lower cylinders 10B and 11B and the upper cylinders 10U and 11U, a cylindrical container having an inner diameter of 108.3 mm and a filling height of 500 mm filled with 2.0 kg of activated carbon was used. The compressor 4 and the compressor 5 are each 40 L / min. 20 L / min. (The flow rate [L / min.] Is 0 ° C., 1 atm conversion value, the same shall apply hereinafter) having a capacity. The apparatus was operated at a cycle time of 500 seconds, and the time of each step was performed according to the time sequence shown in Table 5.

  The flow rate of the source gas introduced into the source gas storage tank 1 is 2 L / min. The gas concentration is 50% by volume of xenon and 50% by volume of nitrogen. Further, the flow rate of xenon collected from the easily adsorbed component storage tank 2 is 1 L / min. The nitrogen flow rate collected from the hardly adsorbed component storage tank 3 is 1 L / min. It was.

Under the above operating conditions, when continuous operation was performed for about 24 hours, the nitrogen concentration derived from the path L7 and the xenon concentration derived from the path L13 settled to be substantially constant, that is, the circulation steady state was reached. confirmed. At this time, the concentration of xenon in nitrogen and the concentration of nitrogen in xenon were both about 300 ppm. This indicates that the concentrations of nitrogen and xenon were both 99.97%, and the recovery rate was 99.97% as well.
From the above, it was confirmed that both nitrogen, which is a hardly adsorbable component, and xenon, which is an easily adsorbable component, can be collected at a high concentration and a high recovery rate.

As Example 2, an experiment for separating xenon using a mixed gas containing xenon, nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and hydrogen as a source gas using the pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation apparatus shown in FIG. went.
The flow rate of the source gas introduced into the source gas storage tank 1 is 2.1 L / min. The gas concentrations are xenon 23.8% by volume, nitrogen 23.8% by volume, argon 23.8% by volume, hydrogen 4.8% by volume and the balance oxygen.
The xenon flow rate recovered from the easily adsorbed component storage tank 2 is 0.5 L / min. The mixed gas flow rate recovered from the hardly adsorbed component storage tank 3 is 1.6 L / min. It was.

The operation was carried out continuously for about 24 hours as the time sequence indicated in Table 5 with the time of each step as in Example 1, and the concentration of xenon contained in the mixed gas derived from the path L7 was about The nitrogen concentration, the oxygen concentration, and the argon concentration contained in xenon derived from the path L13 were all about 50 ppm. Hydrogen was not detected in xenon.
Therefore, the concentration of recovered xenon is about 99.98%, and the recovery rate is 99.7%.
From the results of the above experiments, it was confirmed that the xenon of the target component can be recovered at a high concentration and a high recovery rate even when there are a plurality of hardly adsorbed components.

  The pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method and apparatus of the present invention efficiently recovers high value-added gas such as xenon at a high concentration and high recovery rate from the mixed gas supplied to the manufacturing facility and discharged after use. It can be effectively used as a method and apparatus for recycling. And by combining this pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation device and the circulation cycle formed by the manufacturing equipment of the semiconductor product or display device, the cost of expensive atmospheric gas used in semiconductor manufacturing equipment etc. is greatly increased. Can be reduced.

The schematic block diagram of the pressure fluctuation | variation adsorption type gas separation apparatus for enforcing the pressure fluctuation | variation adsorption type gas separation method of this invention. The process figure which shows the half cycle of the pressure fluctuation | variation adsorption type gas separation method of this invention. The process figure which shows the other half cycle of the pressure fluctuation | variation adsorption type gas separation method of this invention. The process figure which shows the half cycle of the pressure fluctuation | variation adsorption type gas separation method of this invention. The process figure which shows the other half cycle of the pressure fluctuation | variation adsorption type gas separation method of this invention. The schematic diagram which shows the xenon density | concentration distribution of the adsorption agent packed bed at the time of completion | finish of an adsorption process. The schematic diagram which shows the xenon density | concentration distribution of the adsorbent packed bed at the time of completion | finish of the rinse process. The schematic diagram which shows the xenon density | concentration distribution of the adsorption agent packed bed at the time of the pressure equalization pressure reduction process completion | finish.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Raw material gas storage tank, 2 ... Easy adsorption component storage tank, 3 ... Difficult adsorption component storage tank,
4, 5 ... Compressor, 10B, 11B ... Lower cylinder, 10U, 11U ... Upper cylinder,

Claims (16)

Adsorbent and
Using a source gas containing an easily adsorbing component that is easily adsorbing to this adsorbent and a difficultly adsorbing component that is hardly adsorbing to the adsorbent,
Using a separation apparatus comprising a lower cylinder, an upper cylinder filled with the adsorbent, a source gas storage tank for storing at least the source gas, and an easily adsorbed component storage tank for storing the easily adsorbed component; A pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation method for recovering the easily adsorbed component and the hardly adsorbed component from
(A) The gas in the raw material gas storage tank is pressurized and introduced into the lower cylinder, the easily adsorbed component in the gas is adsorbed on the adsorbent, and the gas from which the easily adsorbed component is reduced from the lower cylinder is Introducing into the cylinder, adsorbing the easily adsorbed component contained in the gas using the adsorbent of the upper cylinder, and collecting the hardly adsorbed component flowing out from the upper cylinder;
(B) Pressurizing the gas in the easy adsorption component storage tank and introducing it into the lower cylinder, and the difficult adsorption component co-adsorbed on the adsorbent in the lower cylinder and the difficult adsorption component remaining in the gap between the adsorbents in the upper cylinder a step of deriving, by adsorbing readily adsorbable component contained in the gas flowing in from the bottom tube to the adsorbent of the upper tube, to recover the less readily adsorbable component flowing out from the upper tube in,
(C) Depressurizing the lower cylinder , desorbing the easily adsorbed component adsorbed on the adsorbent of the lower cylinder , and collecting the easily adsorbed component that has been desorbed in the easily adsorbed component storage tank;
And (d) an upper cylinder under vacuum, to desorb the adsorbed gas to the adsorbent of the upper cylinder, the gas that has been desorbed into the lower tube, to recover the gas which has flowed out from the lower cylinder to the material gas storage tank process When,
(E) The hardly adsorbed component recovered in the above steps (a) and (b) is introduced into the upper cylinder as a countercurrent purge gas, and the easily adsorbed component adsorbed on the adsorbent in the upper cylinder is replaced and desorbed and flows out from the upper cylinder. Introducing the gas coming into the lower cylinder, replacing and desorbing easily adsorbed components adsorbed on the adsorbent in the lower cylinder with the gas introduced into the lower cylinder, and recovering the gas flowing out from the lower cylinder to the source gas storage tank Have
(F) Pressure fluctuation characterized by simultaneously recovering the easily adsorbed component and the hardly adsorbed component in the raw material gas by sequentially repeating the steps (a) to (e) based on a predetermined sequence. Adsorption gas separation method. The step (b) uses at least two lower cylinders and an upper cylinder,
(I) The upper cylinder which finished the process of (b) and the other upper cylinder which finished the process of (e) are communicated, and the gas of the upper cylinder which finished the process of (b) is (e) Introducing the gas in the lower cylinder after completing the step (b) into the upper cylinder after completing the step (b), and introducing the gas in the easily adsorbed component storage tank Including the step of introducing into the lower cylinder,
The step (e) uses at least two lower cylinders and an upper cylinder,
(J) The upper cylinder that has completed the step (e) is communicated with the other upper cylinder that has completed the step (b), and the gas in the upper cylinder that has completed the step (b) Introducing the gas in the upper cylinder after completing the step (e) into the lower cylinder after completing the step (e),
The pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method according to claim 1, comprising: The step (b) uses at least two lower cylinders and an upper cylinder,
(G) The upper cylinder that has completed the process of (a) is communicated with the other upper cylinder that has completed the process of (e), and the gas in the upper cylinder that has completed the process of (a) is (e) Introducing the gas in the lower cylinder after completing the step (a) into the upper cylinder after completing the step (a), and introducing the gas in the easily adsorbable component storage tank Introducing into the lower cylinder,
The step (e) uses at least two lower cylinders and an upper cylinder,
(H) The upper cylinder that has completed the step (e) is communicated with the other upper cylinder that has completed the step (b), and the gas in the upper cylinder that has completed the step (b) Introducing the gas in the upper cylinder after completing the step (e) into the lower cylinder after completing the step (e),
The pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method according to claim 1, comprising:   4. The pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method according to claim 1, wherein the adsorbent is an adsorbent that separates into an easily adsorbed component and a hardly adsorbed component based on a difference in equilibrium adsorption amount. .   An adsorbent that separates into an easily adsorbed component and a hardly adsorbed component based on the difference in equilibrium adsorption amount is selected from the group consisting of activated carbon, Na-X zeolite, Ca-X zeolite, Ca-A zeolite, and Li-X zeolite. The pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method according to claim 4, wherein   6. The pressure fluctuation according to claim 4, wherein the easily adsorbing component is xenon or krypton, and the hardly adsorbing component is a gas containing any of oxygen, nitrogen, argon, hydrogen, and helium. Adsorption gas separation method.   The pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the adsorbent is an adsorbent that separates into an easily adsorbed component and a hardly adsorbed component based on an adsorption rate difference.   8. The pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation method according to claim 7, wherein the pore size of the adsorbent adsorbent that is separated into the easily adsorbed component and the hardly adsorbed component based on the difference in adsorption rate is about 0.4 nm.   9. The pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation according to claim 7, wherein the hardly adsorbing component is xenon or krypton, and the easily adsorbing component is a gas containing any of oxygen, nitrogen, and argon. Method. An apparatus for separating main components from a raw material gas comprising a mixed gas containing at least two main components using a pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation method,
A lower cylinder filled with at least one kind of adsorbent which has an easy adsorptivity to at least one main component of the raw material gas and has a hard adsorbability to at least one main component of the raw material gas. And the upper tube,
A source gas storage tank for introducing the source gas;
An easy-adsorption component storage tank for storing a main component exhibiting an easy-adsorption property for the adsorbent;
A hard-adsorption component storage tank for storing a main component showing hard-adsorption to the adsorbent;
A compressor for compressing the gas discharged from the raw material gas storage tank or the easily adsorbed component storage tank;
When adsorbing main components that are easily adsorbable to the adsorbent to the lower cylinder and the upper column, the raw material is supplied from the source gas storage tank or the easy adsorption component storage tank to the lower cylinder via the compressor. A pipe for supplying a gas or a main component exhibiting easy adsorption;
A conduit connecting the lower tube and the upper tube;
A pipe line connecting the upper cylinder and the hardly adsorbed component storage tank;
In the step of depressurizing the lower cylinder and desorbing the main component exhibiting easy adsorption adsorbed on the adsorbent filled in the lower cylinder, the main component exhibiting easy adsorption having high desorption is removed from the lower section. A conduit for returning from the cylinder to the easily adsorbed component storage tank;
In the step of depressurizing the upper cylinder and desorbing the gas adsorbed to the adsorbent filled in the upper cylinder, the desorbed gas is introduced into the lower cylinder and includes an easily adsorbed component that has flowed out of the lower cylinder A pressure fluctuation adsorption gas separation apparatus , comprising: a pipe for collecting gas in the raw material gas storage tank .   The pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation device according to claim 10, wherein the raw material gas storage tank or the easily adsorbed component storage tank has a mechanism for replenishing the easily adsorbed component from the outside.   The pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation device according to claim 10, wherein the raw material gas storage tank or the hardly adsorbed component storage tank has a mechanism for replenishing the hardly adsorbed component from the outside.   11. The pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation device according to claim 10, wherein the adsorbent is an adsorbent that separates into an easily adsorbed component and a hardly adsorbed component based on a difference in equilibrium adsorption amount.   An adsorbent that separates into an easily adsorbed component and a hardly adsorbed component based on the difference in equilibrium adsorption amount is selected from the group consisting of activated carbon, Na-X zeolite, Ca-X zeolite, Ca-A zeolite, and Li-X zeolite. The pressure fluctuation adsorption-type gas separation device according to claim 13, wherein   The pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation device according to claim 10, wherein the adsorbent is an adsorbent that separates into an easily adsorbed component and a hardly adsorbed component based on an adsorption rate difference.   The pressure fluctuation adsorption type gas separation device according to claim 15, wherein the pore diameter of the adsorbent that is separated into the easily adsorbed component and the hardly adsorbed component based on the difference in adsorption rate is about 0.4 nm.

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