General Design Consideration of Cryogenic Air Separation Unit for Esfahan Steel Company

Cryogenic air separation unit is integral part of many industrial manufacturing plants like steelmaking, glass, chemical and petrochemicals industries where high purity argon, oxygen and nitrogen are required. Argon, nitrogen and oxygen quality, its production cost and its energy consumption are important parameters in any cryogenic air separation plant design. In this paper, the importance of parameters which used in designing the cryogenic air separation plant are evaluated. Here, in this paper, ESCO, referred to Esfahan steel company in designing cryogenic air separation unit. Products purity is the main issue in every cryogenic air separation plant design. Pressure and temperature variation must be well controlled within cryogenic air separation unit. The annual steel production of ESCO is about 2.5 Mt pre year and it is planned to increase its production to 3.2 Mt by end of 2016. ESCO requires about 300×106 Nm3/y (34300 Nm3/h) of oxygen for its present steel production. ESCO needs an additional 84×106 Nm3 (9600 Nm3/h) oxygen for its proposed 0.7 Mt crude steel production increase.