PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15981819
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-05
Publication Date: 2018-11
Patent Classification: ["062", "645000"]

Abstract:
A liquefier device which may be a retrofit to an air separation plant or utilized as part of a new design. The flow needed for the liquefier comes from an air separation plant running in a maxim oxygen state, in a stable mode. The three gas flows are low pressure oxygen, low pressure nitrogen, and higher pressure nitrogen. All of the flows are found on the side of the main heat exchanger with a temperature of about 37 degrees Fahrenheit. All of the gasses put into the liquefier come out as a subcooled liquid, for storage or return to the air separation plant. This new liquefier does not include a front end electrical compressor, and will take a self produced liquid nitrogen, pump it up to a runnable 420 psig pressure, and with the use of turbines, condensers, flash pots, and multi pass heat exchangers. The liquefier will make liquid from a planned amount of any pure gas oxygen or nitrogen an air separation plant can produce.

Claim (Index 1):
A liquefier device configured for use with an air separation plant comprising;\n a heat exchanger system provided in an insulated housing containing an oxygen cooler, a preheater, a boiler, a condenser, an added cooler heat exchanger, a turbine exhaust phase separator, an oxygen production flash pot, a nitrogen production flash pot, a nitrogen pump flash pot, a plurality of level control valves for controlling the liquid height of a nitrogen bath in the flash pots, and a system of inlet and outlet lines connecting therebetween, an oxygen gas stream, a low pressure nitrogen gas stream, and a high pressure gas nitrogen stream from the air separation plant to the heat exchanger system, a turbine assembly operably connected to the heat exchanger system including a plurality of turbine expanders connected in parallel, and a plurality of turbine boosters connected in series, each turbine expander and turbine booster having an associated inlet flow meter, each turbine expander having variable guide vanes, and each turbine booster having an associated aftercooler and surge control valve, and a nitrogen pump system operably connected to the heat exchanger system for increasing the pressure of a liquid nitrogen stream to the boiler, the oxygen gas stream being connected to pass sequentially through the oxygen cooler, boiler, and condenser, entering the tube side of the oxygen production flash pot, and exiting as a subcooled liquid oxygen output to storage, the low pressure nitrogen gas stream from the air separation plant joining a nitrogen flow from the oxygen production flash pot and the combined flow connecting to the turbine boosters of the turbine assembly, an exit flow of compressed nitrogen gas from the turbine boosters providing a major nitrogen gas flow to the heat exchanger system, which flow branches into a first branch having a control valve set to warm the oxygen cooler, a second bypass branch, and a third branch having a control valve set to warm the preheater, the branches then rejoining and providing a warm flow to the boiler in order to boil away a nitrogen bath, cooling the flow which then enters the condenser and undergoes a heat exchange with the exhaust flow from the turbines and forming a two-phase liquid gas nitrogen stream which enters the added cooling heat exchanger to further cool the two-phase nitrogen stream, which is then directed to the pump flash pot to produce a single phase liquid nitrogen stream, a branch connecting the liquid nitrogen stream exiting the pump flash pot to the nitrogen pump system, where the flow pressure is increased, and a first flow from the pump system feeding the boiler, and a second flow from the pump system connecting back to the shell side of the pump flash pot, the first flow from the boiler feeding the preheater where the nitrogen flow is vaporized, and then connecting to an inlet to the turbine expanders, and the exit exhaust flow from the turbine expanders connecting to the turbine exhaust phase separator, a controlled liquid nitrogen flow from the phase separator to flash pots, and a gas stream off of the phase separator leading to the condenser, boiler, and oxygen cooler, to a pressure control valve and joining the high pressure nitrogen inlet line, and another branch connecting the liquid nitrogen stream exiting the pump flash pot to the tube side of the nitrogen production flash pot, the output of which is a subcooled saleable nitrogen product.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 45.0
- Percentile: 93.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.84
- Patent Class: 62.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['11477924', '12526230', '15071534', '14695521', '15414155']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.7997013439559462
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5049338774233253
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.770224597302684
- Mean Citation Score: 236.54901
- Max Citation Score: 255.43262
- Similarity Product: 187.3124476359558

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 0
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test