JPH0365213A - Nitrogen concentrating apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] This bulletin contains application data before electronic filing, so abstract data is not recorded.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to a nitrogen concentrator that uses a gas separation membrane to increase the nitrogen concentration in a room.

Conventional technology Traditionally, nitrogen has been used in the chemical industry as an inert gas.

Widely used in food storage, electronic industry, etc. As a nitrogen supply source, a cylinder filled with liquid nitrogen or compressed nitrogen is generally used. However, these methods involve the risk of handling low-temperature liquid nitrogen or high-pressure gas containers, and have the problem that handling such as container replacement and flow rate adjustment is complicated. For this reason, methods have been proposed for concentrating indoor nitrogen using a gas separation membrane for applications that do not require high-purity nitrogen (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 60-149
Publication No. 24).

A conventional nitrogen concentrator will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing the configuration of a conventional nitrogen concentrator. In the figure, 1 is a nitrogen enrichment chamber for increasing the nitrogen concentration, 2 is a fan that supplies air in the nitrogen enrichment chamber 1 to a duct 3 and a gas separation membrane emitter 4, and 5 is a gas separation membrane unit 4. a vacuum pump for separating oxygen in the nitrogen enrichment chamber 1; 6 is a discharge path for the separated air with high oxygen concentration; 7 is a supply path for nitrogen-enriched air; 8 is an outside air supply fan; 10 is a It is an oxygen removal device.

The operation of the nitrogen concentrator configured as described above will be explained below.

Air inside the nitrogen enrichment chamber 1 is supplied to the gas separation membrane unit 4 by the housing fan 2 . When the vacuum pump 6 is operated at the same time, oxygen is separated within the gas separation membrane Unisoto 4 and is discharged to the outside through the discharge path 6. The air from which oxygen has been removed and whose nitrogen concentration has been increased is supplied into the nitrogen enrichment chamber 1 from the nitrogen enriched air supply path A. Furthermore, the outside air supply fan 8 supplies air equivalent to the oxygen-enriched air discharged from the gas separation membrane unit.

Problems to be Solved by the Invention However, in the above nitrogen concentrator, the efficiency is improved by replenishing the removed oxygen amount from outside air and mixing the atmospheric air with the nitrogen-enriched air concentrated in the gas separation membrane unit. In addition, there were problems in that a highly concentrated nitrogen atmosphere could not be obtained.

In view of the above-mentioned problems, the present invention provides a nitrogen concentrator that can more efficiently obtain a highly concentrated nitrogen atmosphere.

Means for Solving the Problem In order to achieve this object distantly, the nitrogen concentrator of the present invention uses an oxygen removing means equipped with a gas separation membrane, a button, and a nitrogen concentrating means to remove oxygen from the evening room and at the same time remove oxygen from the room. It has a configuration that supplies nitrogen-enriched air.

According to the configuration, the oxygen removing means removes oxygen from indoor air, and at the same time, the nitrogen concentrating means removes oxygen from the outdoor air, thereby supplying nitrogen-enriched air into the room. , the indoor nitrogen concentration is increased. At this time, if the concentration of the nitrogen-enriched air supplied from the nitrogen concentrator into the room is set to a level higher than the required indoor nitrogen concentration, the oxygen remover only needs to remove the oxygen that originally exists in the room.
Nitrogen concentration can be increased in a shorter time than when outdoor air is directly introduced. Furthermore, even if the concentration of nitrogen-enriched air supplied is below the required indoor nitrogen concentration, the amount of oxygen removed by the oxygen removal means is less than when introducing atmospheric air, and the nitrogen concentration can be increased in a much shorter time. Not even.

EXAMPLE An example of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a nitrogen concentrator in one embodiment of the present invention. Reference numeral 101 is a nitrogen enrichment container intended to increase the nitrogen concentration, and has a volume of 10/1, and is designed to have an airtight lid.

104 is an oxygen removal device, and a gas separation membrane module 105
(hereinafter referred to as module/L/105) and vacuum pump 1
It consists of 06. The gas separation membrane 107 provided in MODU/L/105 is a support made of a polyethersulfone porous material formed on a polypropylene nonwoven fabric and coated with a polymer membrane mainly composed of dimethyl silicone. Reference numeral 111 denotes a nitrogen-concentrated air supply device, which consists of a gas separation membrane module 112 (j is below, referred to as module 112) and a vacuum pump 113. module 112
The same gas separation membrane 114 as the gas separation membrane 107 is used.

The operation of the nitrogen concentrator configured as described above will be explained below. First, the vacuum pump 1 of the oxygen removal device 104
When the module 06 is operated, oxygen in the nitrogen enriched container 101 is selectively separated by the gas separation membrane 10 provided in the module 10E5, and is discharged as oxygen enriched air to the outside of the container. At the same time, the same amount of oxygen-enriched air is exhausted.
Outside air inlet 1 of nitrogen enriched air supply device 111 from outside the container
16 into module 112 to increase the nitrogen concentration in the container.

With the above configuration, the area of the gas separation membrane 10 of the oxygen removal device is 41.5 d, and the area of the gas separation membrane 1 of the nitrogen concentrated air supply device is 41.5 d.
The area of 07 is 208d, and the vacuum inside Moginy μm05,112 is reduced by vacuum pumps 106,113.When operating at -480snHg, the nitrogen enrichment vessel 10
The nitrogen concentration in 1 was 86.6% after 20 minutes and 8 after 60 minutes.
It became 9.5%. The results are shown in Figure 2.

As described above, according to this embodiment, there is provided an oxygen removal device using a gas separation membrane for removing oxygen in a nitrogen enrichment container, and a gas separation device for supplying nitrogen enriched air into the nitrogen enrichment container. By using a membrane-based nitrogen-concentrated air supply device, the nitrogen concentration in the container can be increased in a short time.

Effects of the Invention As described above, according to the present invention, oxygen is removed from the room and nitrogen-concentrated air is supplied into the room at the same time by means of an oxygen removal means using a gas separation membrane, a button, and a nitrogen concentration means. A highly concentrated nitrogen atmosphere can be obtained in a short period of time, which has great practical effects.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram showing the groove bottom of a nitrogen concentrator according to an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a characteristic diagram showing changes over time in the nitrogen concentration in the container of the same embodiment, and Fig. 3 is a conventional nitrogen concentrator. FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing the groove bottom of the device. 101... Nitrogen enrichment container, 104...
Oxygen removal device, 107... Gas separation membrane, 111
...Nitrogen enriched air supply device, 114...
・Gas separation membrane.

Claims (1)

[Claims] The device includes means for removing oxygen from indoor air, and means for obtaining a nitrogen-enriched gas from outdoor air and supplying it into the room, and the oxygen removing means and the nitrogen concentrating means are gas separators having a higher permeation rate for oxygen than for nitrogen. A nitrogen concentrator characterized by comprising a membrane.