Air separation

Enhance the efficiency of your air separation units with advanced compression solutions engineered for highly reliable plants.

• High energy efficiency
  Optimized for minimal power consumption.
• Increased reliability
  Minimal downtime due to advanced design.
• Tailored solutions 
  Customized to your specific industrial needs.
• Compliance with industry standards
  Meeting all required industry regulations.
• Extended life cycle
  Ensuring long maintenance intervals and reduced total cost of ownership.

• Low vibration operation
  Minimizing operational noise and wear.
• Robust design for challenging conditions
  Built to handle high pressure and temperature conditions in industrial applications.

The oil-free and contactless Laby® compression solution is ideal for compressing air and produced gases such as O₂ and N₂

We offer a choice of packages:

• Complete installations
• Engineered packages
• Bare shaft compressors

• Fine-tuned compressor selection, design and sizing for the duty of, improving energy efficiency.
• Plant engineering considering available footprint.
• In-house execution of pulsation and vibration studies.
• On the spot Instrumentation.
• Dedicated PLC with in-house programming to ensure full process compatibility.

ASU's are divided in two distinct operation principles: Cryogenic and non-cryogenic.

Cryogenic production is the separation of air by fractional distillation at very low temperatures where the components of the air are liquid. The air is cooled down to -185° C by refrigeration processes. In the following distilling process the required products are produced. The gaseous products and waste streams are then warmed. The products are now available for packing in high pressure cylinders or pipeline delivery. This process reaches the highest purities of the required products (e.g. ~99.5% with O₂). The low temperatures of the handled gases require a compressor solution that is insensitive to these low levels of temperature. To obtain a high level of gas purity and to mitigate the risk of explosions (e.g. with O₂) of oil vapors an oil-free and contactless (no abrasive wear) compressor solution is mandatory.

The contactless and oil-free Laby compressor solution is the solution of choice since the labyrinth sealing on pistons and piston rods is insensitive to temperature changes. No hotspots due to sealing ring friction occur and no contamination of the valuable gases with oil or abrasives can happen.

Non-cryogenic production as the separation of air at near ambivalent temperatures requires the Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) process. A special adsorptive material (e.g. zeolites) in a pressurised (1 – 3 bar) vessel adsorbs the relevant gases (N₂, CO₂, etc.) from the air according to the molecular properties. With this process a purity of 90 – 95 % of oxygen can be achieved. By lowering the pressure (“Swinging” from high to low pressure) the “waste gas” can be desorbed and purged out of the vessel. Operating two or more vessels in parallel allows near continuous production. Alternatively the Vacuum Pressure Swing Adsorption (VPSA) can be used. The only difference to the PSA is, that vacuum blowers are used to reduce the desorption pressure in this kind of process. The lower desorption pressure allows much lower inlet pressures. In general these systems are more costly but more energy efficient for the same product flow and purity conditions