Modelling and Optimization of PSA (Pressure Swing Adsorption) Unit by using Aspen Plus® and Design Expert ®
Pranta Sutradhar1, Pritam Maity2, Sayan Kar3, Sourav Poddar4

1Pranta Sutradhar, Department of Chemical Engineering, Calcutta Institute of Technology, Kolkata (West Bengal), India.
2 Pritam Maity, Department of Chemical Engineering, Calcutta Institute of Technology, Kolkata (West Bengal), India.
3Sayan Kar, Department of Chemical Engineering, Calcutta Institute of Technology, Kolkata (West Bengal), India.
4Dr. Sourav Poddar, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Calcutta Institute of Technology, Kolkata (West Bengal), India.
Manuscript received on 05 February 2019 | Revised Manuscript received on 13 February 2019 | Manuscript published on 28 February 2019 | PP: 64-69 | Volume-8 Issue-4, February 2019 | Retrieval Number: D2628028419/19©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Abstract: Pressure swing adsorption (PSA) is a well-established technique for separation of components from air, which is commonly known as Air Separation Unit (ASU), drying of gas and nitrogen and hydrogen purification separation and etc. In PSA processes, the most important is adsorbent material depending upon its properties. Generally, ASU is difficult to operate due to high degree of energy integration into itself. This research article represents the separation of nitrogen from air. As separation of nitrogen is a very important in the field of chemical engineering as it has wide applications in the various process industries. There are various techniques for separation of nitrogen, amongst them the most common are reverse stirling cycle, LINDE-HAMPSON cycle, Joule Thompson effect and etc. This article mainly focusses on the separation of nitrogen using PSA unit only. The whole process was simulated using Aspen Plus ® and the simulated results were then optimized using Design Expert ®. Various flowrates ranging from 50 kg/h to 200 kg/h were selected, depending upon the process conditions. The output of the simulated results from Aspen Plus ® were then optimized using Box Behnken method, in order to obtain the optimized flowrate of Nitrogen. The response pattern suggest that the flowrates of nitrogen and other gases follows quadratic equation. The significance of the coefficients of the equation and the adequacy of the fit were determined using Student-t test and Fischer F-test respectively. The final flowrates obtained are interchanged in order to obtain the maximum conditions, except for nitrogen production other production rates remain the same.
Keyword: Nitrogen, PSA (Pressure Swing Adsorption), Aspen Plus®, Design Expert®.
Scope of the Article: Bio-Science and Bio-Technology