GENERON High Purity Nitrogen Membrane
September 13, 2024
GENERON® is a world leader in the onsite production of Nitrogen from the separation of compressed air into its component gases. Generon has numerous patents utilizing both PSA (Pressure Swing Absorption) and Hollow Fiber Polymeric Membranes.
Each technology has defined attributes that make them ideal for certain applications. Typically, Generon’s PSA technologies have been focused on stationary applications where site conditions can be carefully controlled. PSAs require very careful control of the incoming air temperature to work properly. PSAs are typically utilized in applications requiring very high purities; up to 99.999% nitrogen gas.
Generon’s Hollow Fiber Polymeric Membranes HollowPure™ complement the Generon PSA CleanSorb™ technology generating nitrogen purity levels ranging from 95 to 99%. Most recently, Generon Engineering has advanced its HollowPure™ HPM membrane product to equivalent PSA Technologies at purities up to 99.9%. This is a major technological advancement, not only for high purity applications, but also where increased pressures are required.
This technological development facilitates Nitrogen Production at higher purities up to 99.9% in remote or mobile applications.
There are many technical differences on how PSA and Membrane operate. The main difference between the technologies is the means used for separating the compressed air gases. In a PSA, the process requires 4 pressure vessels; two containing the separating media and two that provide corresponding, stable, air and nitrogen feeding and receiving to and from the separating vessels. The compressed air is passed through a series of valves that alternate between each adsorber vessel every 40-50 seconds. This process is very reliable but does require increased maintenance of the 6 switching valves.
In a membrane system, compressed air enters the membrane modules. Notably, the membrane nitrogen process has only one moving part. The control valve on the discharge of the membranes, which modulates by means of an Oxygen analyzer. The desired Nitrogen purity is selected and the system adjusts the control valve to maintain its set point.
Selecting the best suited technology for the application is based on a number of factors tied to purity, temperature and pressure requirements.
Contact a Generon Specialist to conduct an engineering evaluation of the application and provide recommendations that best meet the user key requirements.