EXERGY-BASED METHODS FOR AIR SEPARATION

摘要

Air separation by cryogenic distillation has been used for over 100 years as an industrial process forrnproducing pure nitrogen, oxygen as well as argon, helium and other noble gases. Different configurationsrnand sizes of air separation plants lead to different ranges of gaseous and liquid products and different purity,rnwhich depend on the potential consumer and the application. Air separation processes are energy and costrnintensive.rnIn this paper, the exergetic, economic, and exergoeconomic analyses are discussed briefly, while attention isrngiven to the LCA and the exergoenvironmental analysis as well as to exergy-risk-hazard analysis. Thernexergy-based methods are demonstrated using two configurations of an air separation plant. The resultsrnobtained from the exergetic analysis show that the overall exergetic efficiencies are approximately 35 % andrn59 % for air separation plants with and without a nitrogen liquefaction block, respectively.