Posted to News on 26th Oct 2012, 17:07
Atlas Copco launches new on-site nitrogen and oxygen generators
Atlas Copco Compressors is launching three new ranges of nitrogen and oxygen generators for on-site gas generation. The new NGM, NGP and OGP generators meet purity standards and run economically for both large and small applications. They also enable companies to utilise their existing compressed air installation to generate their own nitrogen and oxygen and therefore realise significant economies of scale as well as operational cost savings.
On-site gas generation is more sustainable and cost efficient than gas delivered in cylinders or bulk liquid supply, as it eliminates the operational and administrative costs of ordering, transporting, storing and delivering the bottles or bulk liquid in cryogenic tanks. With an independent supply of nitrogen and oxygen, a company's gas requirements are always met on time and at the lowest possible cost. Koen Lauwers, Vice-President Marketing of Atlas Copco's Industrial Air Division comments: "With these new ranges of gas generators, our customers can dramatically increase their productivity. We help them to discover untapped saving potentials through economies of scale: combining their compressed air systems with the production of nitrogen and/or oxygen, serving their specific applications."
Atlas Copco's new membrane nitrogen generator, the NGM, is suitable for applications such as fire prevention, blanketing, tyre inflation and applications in the offshore and marine industries due to its high efficiency and reliability. The NGM uses membrane air separation to produce nitrogen. A bundle of polymer fibres acts as a membrane that allows nitrogen to pass and other gases (like oxygen, water vapour and carbon dioxide) to permeate. Atlas Copco Membrane technology generates nitrogen with an adjustable purity between 95 and 99.5 per cent and flows up to 500m ³/h.
For applications that require high purities of nitrogen (up to 99.999 per cent), the new NGP, a nitrogen generator using PSA technology, is recommended. Using Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) technology, carbon molecular sieve adsorbs oxygen molecules from compressed air. This nitrogen generator has two connected towers that work together to produce an almost continuous flow of nitrogen gas, resulting in nitrogen purity levels from 95 to 99.999 per cent for flows up to 1100Nm ³/h. The NGP is therefore particularly suitable for applications such as food preservation, plastic moulding, machining, purging, laboratory analysers, and applications in the electronics and food and drink industries.
Zeolite pellets
Oxygen is vital to processes in the medical world, in waste water treatment, fish farming and ozone production. Atlas Copco's new OGP oxygen generator also makes use of PSA technology with zeolite pellets that act as the adsorbent. The output is oxygen with an adjustable purity between 90 per cent and 95 per cent, at flows up to 200Nm ³/h.
All of the new on-site gas generators can be directly combined with an existing compressed air installation and include flows and purities to meet the needs of the majority of industrial applications. To find out more about the new nitrogen and oxygen generators from Atlas Copco, go to www.atlascopco.com.
