(1) Air intake: The air compressor forces air at a certain pressure into the delivery pipeline. The compressed air purification system then removes impurities such as moisture, oil and dust from the air. The treated air flows into the air buffer tank and is subsequently delivered to the two adsorption towers.
(2) Adsorption: After air enters the adsorption towers, oxygen and carbon dioxide are rapidly adsorbed under pressure, and nitrogen-rich gas is formed near the air outlet inside the towers.
(3) Gas discharge: When the adsorption reaches the optimal state with the minimum adsorption ratio of nitrogen to oxygen, the outlet valve is opened to deliver finished nitrogen gas into the nitrogen buffer tank.
(4) Pressure equalization: After gas discharge, there remains nitrogen mixed gas with certain pressure and purity inside the tower, which would be wasteful to discharge directly. This residual gas is delivered into the other adsorption tower to undergo re-adsorption together with the incoming fresh air. This process terminates when the pressure of the two towers levels off, hence named pressure equalization.
(5) Exhaustion: Upon completion of pressure equalization, the gases adsorbed by molecular sieves inside the tower need to be released to prepare for the next adsorption cycle. The system automatically opens the exhaust valve to restore the internal pressure of the tower to the initial state and fully discharge the adsorbed oxygen and carbon dioxide, so that the molecular sieves regain the capacity to adsorb fresh air.
(6) The two adsorption towers work alternately to continuously produce nitrogen gas with a purity of 99% to meet usage demands.
PSA nitrogen generators are mainstream equipment for stably producing medium-to-high purity nitrogen at low costs in industrial sites.
