FAST-CYCLE PSA TECHNOLOGY FOR OXGEN GENERATION IN MILITARY APPLICATIONS

摘要

QuestAir Technologies is developing an extremely compact, proprietary Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) technology that separates oxygen from air, and hydrogen from reformate. Conventional PSA systems are limited first by their use of pelletized zeolite adsorbents, which have slow gas adsorption kinetics, high pressure drop, and can fluidize causing attrition. These systems operate at less than ten production/purge cycles per minute. QuestAir has reformatted these same zeolites into structured adsorbents, which have fast kinetics, low pressure drop passages, and fixed (bonded) adsorbent. These adsorbents are capable of operating at speeds over 150 cycles per minute, which leads to drastic reductions in system size. The second limitation of conventional systems is their use of many independent switching valves to direct pressure and flow. QuestAir has simplified the switching process by using two small multi-port switching valves with increased reliability. These valves increase the efficiency of the PSA process through the application of complex PSA cycles. This paper will outline how QuestAir's rapid cycle PSA technology can be applied in various applications of interest to the military. These applications include deployable oxygen generation systems for field hospitals, shipboard oxygen generation systems, on-board oxygen generating systems for aircraft, power boost for diesel tank engines, and high temperature fuel cell engine efficiency improvement. Additionally the compact PSA technology can be applied to enable personal environmental solutions to protect soldiers and their power systems against battlefield contaminants while increasing the energy density of their personal fuel cell power systems.