Features and advantages of PSA hydrogen production technology

Also seeking information on the characteristics of hydrogen production technologies; hoping to find materials on this topic

UOP is hardly involved in PSA; it is a global leader in continuous reforming technologies, including propane dehydrogenation (with continuous catalyst regeneration), VCC (with continuous catalyst regeneration), and light hydrocarbon aromatization (with continuous catalyst regeneration)； Linde Gas is a world-class gas company specializing in air separation, hydrogen production, oxygen production, nitrogen, CO2, helium, and other products; its technology for PSA hydrogen production is not significantly different from that used in China ； Sichuan Tianyi’s PSA hydrogen production technology is quite advanced; its products feature high purity, the adsorbents used are of reliable quality, and the hydrogen yield reaches 90%. It is one of the top PSA hydrogen production companies in China.

If possible, could you roughly explain the technical features of Lind and Tianyi? :handshake

This post was last edited by Wenwu6963 on 2015-7-1 15:36. Lind and Tianyi are essentially similar; their features are summarized as follows: 1. They do not use chemical solvents, making them environmentally friendly. 2. No heating or cooling is required, resulting in low energy consumption and resource savings. 3. They have a high degree of automation, are easy to adjust, offer great operational flexibility, and facilitate human-machine interaction. 4. The products obtained have high purity; inert gases such as methane and argon can be removed, which is advantageous for processes that require gas recycling (as it reduces the amount of gas that needs to be recycled as well as the associated energy costs). 5. The investment required is low, and the operating costs are minimal. The downside is that there is a trade-off between hydrogen recovery rate and purity – higher purity leads to a lower recovery rate, usually around 90% or less. However, I have a process that achieves a purity of 99.5% with a recovery rate of 99.5% as well; feel free to contact me if you’re interested.

The two key factors of PSA are the adsorbent and specialty valves. For the Tianyi 200,000-ton facility, the amount of adsorbent required is about 1.7 tons. There are 130 PSA-CO2/R valves, 184 PSA-CO valves, and 104 PSA-H2 valves. I’m not familiar with adsorbents, but do you know anything about valves? Specifically, how many of them have a hard seal? What are their switching times and the number of times they can be switched on and off in 24 hours? I’d appreciate some guidance from experts.

We use metal-to-soft sealing; the application of hard sealing is not very clear. Switching time is required

Foreign pressure swing adsorption technologies such as those from UOP and Linde are mainly used for exhaust gas recovery, while the purification of process gases is carried out using low-temperature methanol washing followed by liquid nitrogen washing. Therefore, their scale is generally small, and their applications are not very widespread. In China, due to the large number of enterprises involved in the production of ammonia and methanol – with an estimated over 3,000 production units at its peak – there is a wide range of opportunities for various gas purification processes, or in other words, opportunities to gain experience. As a result, companies in China, including Tianyi and others, have had the chance to apply their skills and improve them, and their technical level has now surpassed that of similar companies abroad. Pressure swing adsorption generally boasts advantages such as high degree of automation, environmental friendliness, and energy efficiency. In particular, its operating costs are much lower than those of processes such as chemical absorption and physical methods. The disadvantages include unstable operation of some devices, a low hydrogen recovery rate, and high equipment investment. However, there are also companies in China that have completely resolved these issues, achieving an operational time of over 8,000 hours, a hydrogen recovery rate of over 99.5%, and reducing investment costs to half of what they used to be. These devices are still in operation; those who are interested or have the opportunity can go and inspect them in person

LINDE’s PSA systems feature stable performance, high reliability, high adsorption efficiency, and a long service life.