A Brief History of N2 Seperation/Generation Part II

In 1989 Calor Gas a large, and old company that specialized in Propane, and Butane was a very cash-rich company with a slow and steadily declining business. With business declining the company sought out efforts to divest and find new avenues of revenue. Two employees of Calor, an engineer by the name of Ken Page, and Calor’s Sales Representative Bob Davies found an advertisement in a Gas publication for the Monsanto Permea Membrane, and the two began developing the Calor Air separation division.

Their initial product line consisted of five different systems that ranged in size from 30" in Height to roughly over 7 feet! The volume outputs would range from as little as 1.41 CFH to 3,178 CFH. Calor targeted several industries from pharmaceuticals and food packaging, to the oil and gas industry for blanketing fuel and chemical containers.

Later that year the Calor team met a gentleman by the name of Ron Wentz at a Pub and Leisure trade show. Ron had many contacts in the beer world as he worked for a company named APV. APV had many products that ranged from valves, and components for beer keg's, as well as keg racking systems. Ron was interested in the Calor air seperation system and noticed that it had a large component alongside it which was explained to Ron by Bob Davies that it was a gas blender. Besides being large in size, the gas blender required power in order to operate...

This introduction would ultimately lead the Calor Group into an Industry that was in need of their new product line...More to come!

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*A fun fact about Calor Gas is that the building they occupied was the building where Radar was perfected back in WW2.

A Brief History of N2 Seperation/Generation Part I

Both of the key technologies that are responsible of separation of N2 from compressed air were both developed in the 1960’s. The two main processes are Pressure Swing adsorption (PSA), and Hollow Fiber Membrane Technology (HFM).

Pressure Swing adsorption (PSA) which is the process of gases being adsorbed into surface areas made up of materials like activated carbon, or zeolite under high pressures, and then are desorbed when pressure is reduced. This technology was first developed, and used by Union Carbide to purify hydrogen for the Aerospace industry. This technology ultimately moved into different factions based on the process of the technology in relation to the chemical makeup of materials and their interaction with specific media. Examples would be separation of CO2 from Biogas, Oxygen and Nitrogen from Air, and impurities from hydrogen.

Hollow Fiber Membrane technology (HFM) is the process of media passing through artificial membrane material made from a polymer, which contains a permeable barrier. This technology first found its purpose for Reverse Osmosis, and water filtration. It is also used for desalination of water, as well as used for cell culture, and tissue engineering. Based on the polymer makeup of the membrane cartridge a membrane can be used to strip specific gases such as Carbon Dioxide from natural gas, and O2 from Air. Based on pressure, and temperature of the treated air, O2 the smaller of the two molecules permeates within the fiber allowing the N2 molecules to pass through.

To be continued.....

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