Q. 1. What is PSA and how does it work?

Ans. PSA stands for pressure swing adsorption. It is only a physical process of separating molecules. Compressed air is used to pressurize a vessel. The vessel is filled up with either carbon or zeolites. They actually sift molecules by physical or structure. The process is like this as air is forced into the pressure vessel or sieve bed it causes gas molecules to be trapped in the sieve. While the unwanted other gas floats freely in the bed. After some time, a bit of the pressure is released in the sieve bed. These draws off molecules of the wanted gases and gets collected in a storage tank for use. Further a valve is opened in the sieve bed and all the pressure is released. This opening forces out the captured molecules of the unwanted gases and readying the sieve for another cycle. Thus molecules of gas that are released into the air immediately combine again to form air’s ambient percentages.

Q. 2 How long can the PSA generators last?

Ans. Generally the Oxygen system lasts about 15 to 20 years before the sieve needs any replacement. While the Nitrogen system normally lasts over 20 years provided there is no oil incursion in to the sieve.

Q. 3 How is hydrogen produced today?

Ans. The majority of hydrogen is produced by a method known as steam methane reforming. Generally Hydrogen gets generated from hydrocarbons (such as natural gas) and water at very high temperatures by employing catalytic reactors. The hydrogen thus produced is purified using pressure swing adsorption.

Q. 4 What is a PSA Generator?

Ans. Typically a PSA Generator uses carbon molecular sieve (CMS), this facilitates the smaller molecules in the input air (may be oxygen) to penetrate the Carbon Molecular sieve. While the bigger molecules of nitrogen bypasses the CMS and generates the output gas. A PSA generator primarily consists of a pair of steel columns that contains CMS. PSA generators can achieve a high purity level of around 99.9995%.

Q. 5 Is a PSA Nitrogen Generator safe?

Ans. Certainly yes. As the PSA Nitrogen Generator does not add and neither takes away anything from the atmospheric air, you could run one in a closed room with no change at all to the content of the atmosphere.

Q. 6 Are the Generators noisy?

Ans. The answer is no. The Hydrogen Generators do not make noise. Nitrogen or Zero-Air Generators that uses house air supplies are also silent.

Q. 7 What is an oxygen concentrator?

Ans. Predominantly a medical device that can produce oxygen from the atmospheric air for use. It can produce 95.5% purity oxygen at a flow rate of around six litres per minute. It runs on ordinary electricity.

Q. 8 Are the Zeolites re-useable?

Ans. Yes Zeolites can be regenerated by employing comparatively easy methods such as heating for removal of adsorbed materials, ion exchanging with sodium that removes cations and pressure swing that eliminates adsorbed gases.

Q. 9 Where does the oxygen come from in a Oxygen Bar?

Ans. The oxygen in oxygen bars is derived from a complete self-contained machine that is called oxygen concentrators. They are non-medical concentrators and typically use a technology called Pressure Swing Adsorption. This is a NASA developed technology that has the capability to filter Nitrogen, Argon and other trace gasses from ambient air. The process then combines the separated oxygen molecules to approximately 90% (+) 5% purity for the recipient. Subsequently Nitrogen along with other gasses are thrown out into the atmosphere.

Q. 10 How in a Zero - Emission technology Carbon Dioxide and Hydrogen gets separated?

Ans. By the gasification of fossil fuels, a hydrogen and carbon monoxide gas stream is produced which then reacts with steam (the process of water shift reaction) to produce a mixture. The content of which is hydrogen and carbon dioxide. This is then separated by Pressure Swing Adsorption.

Q. 11 What is fuel ethanol?

Ans. Ethanol when used as part of the fuel that runs a vehicle or an equipment, by blending with petrol, for a motor vehicle is called fuel-ethanol. It is also known as anhydrous alcohol. It is manufactured by dehydration of the rectified spirit or extra neutral alcohol.

Q. 12 What is a PSA Dryer?

Ans. Pressure Swing Adsorption Dryers are suited to applications of gas drying where considerations like low temperature dew point suppression and rate of flow allow their use. Typical applications include Carbon dioxide gas drying and compressed air dryers.

Q. 13 What is Activated Carbon?

Ans. It is a form of carbon that is extremely porous that has little, (if any) volatile material remaining in its structure. It is to be noted here that Activated carbon is quite different from activated charcoal.