VONEN constantly develops the Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) product range for Hydrogen Recovery and Purification. We do this by collaborating with prominent technology providers.
With VONEN PSA Hydrogen Purifiers, hydrogen from various sources can be recovered and purified. Good examples include
- Upgrading industrial hydrogen-rich waste streams from
- Ammonia production: up to 180–240 Nm3 H2 per ton of NH3 is purged to keep the inert gases concentration below a threshold value).
- Syngas, where we have exceptional competitive advantage regarding CO adsorption (see CO adsorption graph below).
- Biogas production.
- Chlor-alkali process.
- Electrolysis of water: Dehumidification of hydrogen, including integration upstream with Gas-Water Separator and Catalytic Reactor as well as integration downstream with H2 Buffer Storage.
The purified hydrogen can be guaranteed to comply with the quality standards set for fuel cell vehicles and electronics industries.
Principle of PSA Operation
The PSA operation is based on the ability of an adsorbent material to retain different gases at different pressures. In hydrogen purification, hydrogen has the weakest adsorption bond to the adsorbent. When pressure is decreased, hydrogen is the first gas to become released, while the more strongly adsorbed components (N2, CO, CO2, CH4, H2O, …) remain adsorbed. The adsorbent is regenerated by depressurizing the column. The use of multiple columns and the cyclic operation ensures continuous purification of the gas flow; while one column is adsorbing, another is desorbing.
Self-adaptive cycle
Our PSA systems use an innovative and self-adaptive cycle, which ensures that purity requirements are always met, even if gas composition at purifier inlet varies. Therefore, we can guarantee that hydrogen purified by VONEN PSA, designed for your requisites, complies with specified H2 quality standards, set for fuel cell vehicles or the electronics industries, for instance.
Note that our new adsorbent has an exceptional and enhanced capacity to remove CO, often the bottleneck in hydrogen purification. With our technology, we can reduce CO content to sub-ppm level without compromising the recovery. See Figure below.
Our CO adsorption capacity compared to competition:
