Argon distillate problems
Thread Content
At the beginning of argon injection into the tower, the purity of the argon was not up to standard; as a result, the liquid returned to the bottom of the crude argon tower. What is the reason for the high argon fraction? Is it due to an excess of nitrogen, or an excess of liquid, which in turn leads to an increased amount of reflux liquid in the main column?
The problem likely lies in the excessively high purity of the product oxygen; when the designed purity requirement is 99.6% oxygen content, that’s when the quality of the argon distillate is at its optimum level. Controlling oxygen purity to prevent it from exceeding limits is a common operational misconception. For reference.