The nitrogen generator is used to produce pure nitrogen from the air. Most nitrogen generators use the air distillation process. Here I explain the general process of nitrogen production in a nitrogen generator:
1. Air compression: First, air is collected from the environment and compressed by a piston compressor or saturated piston compressor. This pressure increases to decrease the volume of air. Finally, the air enters at high pressure.
2. Cooler: Air is transferred to the cooler to reduce its temperature. The cooler usually uses a water cooling system to transfer heat from the air through water evaporation and cool the air.
3. Separation of oxygen and other gases: In this step, the cooled air is transferred to a distillation unit. Here, through the distillation process, the air is split into two streams: one stream containing oxygen and other gases and the other stream containing nitrogen.
4. Nitrogen separation: In this step, the flow containing nitrogen is separated from the general flow. Different methods are used for nitrogen separation, including medium pressure absorption method and process membrane method. In the medium pressure absorption method, special adsorbents such as zeolites are used to absorb nitrogen and release other gases such as oxygen and argon. In the process membrane method, nitrogen permeable membranes are used to separate nitrogen.
5. Output of pure nitrogen: The pure nitrogen produced from the nitrogen generator comes out through the output and can be directly supplied to various applications such as electronic industries, manufacturing processes, mining industries, food industry, packaging industry, etc.
Nitrogen generators are used to produce pure nitrogen on an industrial and commercial scale. These devices act as independent nitrogen sources and prevent dependence on external nitrogen supply such as nitrogen cylinders. The advantages of using a nitrogen generator include cost reduction, stable supply of nitrogen, greater safety and better process control.
The important thing to keep in mind is that nitrogen generators produce only pure nitrogen and separate other gases in the air such as oxygen, argon and other suspended substances.