How to separate CO2 from Helium - PSA/VSA?

[cwinter]

We need to develop a process to separate helium from CO2. Feed stream is 50% Helium, 50% CO2 with a dew point of +5C. Required product is 99% Helium with a recovery rate of 90% or 95%. Inlet flow rate is 25scfm. Looking for ideas? Consultants? Equipment manufacturer? Please post or email or phone: calvinwinter@yahoo.com +1 306 315 5539 Thanks

 

[Compositepro]

CO2 is easily removed by scrubbing with sodium hydroxide solution. Membrane separation would also work.

 

[racookpe1978]

Do you need the He or the CO2?
How pure of either do you need? (If you are looking for He, and will throw away the CO2, how "pure" does the He need to be at each stage? Is a little CO2 contamination a problem, or can you afford to throw away some He+Co2 mix to pass "out" the end of the process 100.000000% pure He? )
How much is it worth for the separation?
How many tons per day of initial mixture?

 

[MartinLe]

Look at pressure water scrubbing. Or amine scrubbing.

 

[cwinter]

Thanks for your answers and ideas. We need to produce 99+% helium. We throw away the 1 ton per day of CO2. The helium is worth hundreds of dollars a day. Difficulty is to get good recovery rate on such a small scale plant without too much complexity or cost. Great ideas?

 

[MartinLe]

Don't know if this is works for your case, but the general wisdom for biogas purification (removing CO2 from CH4 + CO2) is that for smaller plants amine scrubbing is most economical. Or maybe that was the common wisdom, as apprantly there's the issue that amines have to exchanged more often than advertised. Take with salt, all hearsay.

Vendors:
Atlas Copco, Airtexx build Oxygen purifiers in a size range near 1t/d (cryogenic and PSA resp.)
DMT build a range of gas purification systems, don't know if also in your size class. They are mostly in biogas so they know about CO2 removal, don't know if they have experience that's relevant to your problem.