Sasol chief executive Pieter Cox on Monday inaugurated the world’s largest oxygen production plant at the group’s Secunda site near Johannesburg in South Africa.
The new, R668-million plant is in addition to 14 other existing oxygen production plants, which jointly produce 38Â 550 tons per day, making synthetic fuels group Sasol the world’s largest single producer and consumer of oxygen.
Sasol consumes almost 80% of its total oxygen production to convert coal into synthesis gas and the other 20% in gas-reforming processes. Almost 120Â 000 tons of coal is fed into Secunda’s 80 large gasifiers every day and decomposed by high-pressure oxygen and steam, turning it into raw synthesis gas.
“The new, world-scale 15th oxygen production plant will ensure stability of oxygen supplies and optimise further growth in our synfuels production. It will also enhance production of comparatively large volumes of two rare noble gases, krypton and xenon, which among others are used in advanced lighting systems, lasers, medical scanners and high-speed photographic systems,” says Cox.
Sasol supplies its bulk xenon and krypton production directly to Air Liquide in France whose technology has been used in all 15 oxygen production units at Secunda.
The first six plants were commissioned in 1980 and the next six in 1982. Two more were commissioned in the early Nineties.
“We are delighted and proud to celebrate this event with Sasol and confident that our oxygen production technologies will also enable us to meet the needs of the newly established gas-to-liquids industry,” says François Darchis, vice-president of Large Industries Europe and Technologies and member of the executive committee of the Air Liquide group.
The 15th oxygen production unit will produce 3Â 550 tons of oxygen per day and has its own liquid oxygen storage tanks and vaporisers, which can provide up to 10 hours of back-up oxygen production should any of the other 14 units, individually producing 2Â 500 tons of oxygen a day, be required to shut down.
The oxygen production units extract air from the atmosphere, compresses, cools, purifies and heats it, before it is refrigerated to a liquefaction temperature of -186 degrees Celsius. The liquefied oxygen is heated at high pressure until it evaporates and is then distributed to the gasifiers. — I-Net Bridge