PSA Gas Plants

Uses	Advantages

PSA or Pressure Swing Adsorption systems are suitable for different industrial applications in various industries some of the prominent industries being refining, petrochemical, chemical and iron/steel-making industry.

For example, PSA plants that are setup for the recovery and purification of hydrogen from raw gases, such as steam reformer, partial oxidation, refinery, methanol ethylene, coke oven and ammonia off-gases meets every purity requirement (up to 99. 9999%) and achieves highest recovery rates. These days increasingly industry is opting for modular skid design for the PSA plants. This has resulted in considerably less erection time and cost at site.


Another application of large scale PSA plant as shown in the figure, is the one that is utilised for producing high purity carbon monoxide (CO). Modern plants has the capacity to produce even 1400 Nm³/H of carbon monoxide.

Commercial PSA plants for production of oxygen and nitrogen using the method of PSA heatless adsorption (PSA) are also installed in setups requiring high purity oxygen and nitrogen. Often these plants employ the following parameters. For Oxygen – capacity ranging from 10 to 2000 m³/hr with product purity of 93±1% vol. of O₂. For Nitrogen – capacity ranging from 10 to 3000 m³/hr with product purity of 99.9% vol. of N₂.

Image showing a typical Oxygen PSA Plant for industrial use:

• Plant Capacity : upto 500 Nm³/h
• Product pressure : appr. 4 bar g
• Oxygen purity : 92-94 % by vol.

The production of such oxygen plants finds application among others in petrochemical plants, Ozone stations, repair and machine-building enterprises, glass-blowing facilities, in metal cutting at building organizations. PSA plants for production of nitrogen finds wide application at oil-and-gas industry, chemical and food-processing industries, power engineering, in metallurgy, etc.

Advantages of PSA Plants are:

• Low to moderate cost.
• Short payback time.
• Easy maintenance.
• Small size (the occupied space is as less as a fraction of the value of the operating plants).
• Fast reaching of operating conditions (just compare! 30 minutes - 1 hour versus 24-36 hours at cryogenic plants).
• Mobile design of the plants a possibility.
• Modular design along with high mounting readiness (typically the costs of mounting are less by a factor of 1. 5-2, as compared to cryogenic plants).
• Minimum attending personnel (one man vs 7-9 at one-shift operating schedule).
• Environmentally clean.
• Safety considerations with respect to fire proofness and explosion.

Types of PSA Gas Plants:

• PSA Nitrogen Gas Plant
• PSA Oxygen Gas Plant
• Hydrogen Production Plants
• Ammonia Cracker
• Air Dryer
• PSA Generators