Nitrogen gas is widely used across a variety of industries. Buying nitrogen cylinders has been the traditional way to acquire nitrogen. But, due to the need to replace cylinders and the risk of handling high-pressure cylinders, the installation of nitrogen generators has become the preferred method.
Nitrogen generator extracts nitrogen from air and compresses it. There are two technologies used to generate nitrogen from the air – Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) and Membrane Technology. Both types of generators produce high purity nitrogen.
PSA Nitrogen Generation
Nitrogen can be produced by separating oxygen and nitrogen in air by using the (PSA) process. Dry, oil-free compressed air enters the PSA System where the oxygen is adsorbed by the Carbon Molecular Sieves (CMS) and pure nitrogen comes out. Nitrogen is stored in a tank and used whenever required. For this process, two cylindrical adsorbent columns are used. Each column alternates between generating high-purity nitrogen and cleaning out CMS for another cycle.
When nitrogen purity of better than 99.5% up to 99.9999% is required PSA Nitrogen Generation is recommended.
Membrane Nitrogen Generation
When nitrogen purity of up to 99.5% is required for small to medium flow rates then membrane nitrogen generators are used. These generators use a hollow porous fiber to separate the nitrogen molecules from the other gases in ambient air, like oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapor, and argon. The molecules from the stream of compressed air flowing into the generator are separated using high pressure (selective permeation). Faster gases permeate the walls quickly and are released back into the atmosphere, while the nitrogen is focused for use.
Ready to install onsite nitrogen generation units? We supply PSA and membrane N2 generators. Call us for more information.
