2. Conditions of use

Once the separation objective has been defined, the choice of adsorbent is critical in determining the separation performance of the PSA process. Indeed, it is not enough to have chosen a good adsorbent, it must also be easily regenerated by simply lowering the pressure. This is the basic rule for pressure modulation processes, which can be very energy-efficient thanks to their excellent pressure management and the absence of heating requirements.

Another advantage of these PSA units is that there is virtually no need for pre-treatment. All that's needed is to ensure that only one gas phase reaches the adsorbents, which is usually achieved by the use of a separator/condenser pot upstream of the unit. Another form of protection consists in placing one or two beds of "guard" adsorbents at the bottom of the adsorber, on the feed side, generally belonging to the alumina...