The technology company The Linde Group (Munich; www.linde.com) and the specialty chemicals group Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany; www.evonik.com) have intensified their collaboration in the area of membrane-based gas separation within the framework of the groundbreaking ceremony for the expansion of Evonik’s membrane production facility held in Schörfling (Austria) on September 30.
The heart of the collaboration comprises Evonik’s polymer-based membrane technology, which will be used in the gas separation and purification plants of Linde’s Engineering Division. With this, Linde completes its portfolio, combining all relevant gas separation processes within one company. Evonik’s Sepuran membranes enable gases such as methane, nitrogen, helium and hydrogen to be particularly efficiently isolated in pure form from gas mixtures, thanks to more selective separation and higher productivity.
Tobias Keller, head of the Adsorption and Membrane Plants Product Line at Linde’s Engineering Division, says: “Evonik’s high-selectivity membrane in combination with our other established gas-separation technologies, such as our world-class adsorption technology, allows us an extraordinary flexibility in the development and application of new and more efficient purification processes. We are thus strengthening our position as the leading company for gas separation technologies over the entire lifecycle of a plant.”
Axel Kobus, head of Evonik’s Fibres, Membranes & Specialties Product Line, says: “The synergies arising from the collaboration between our two companies are evident: The translation of our profund polymer and technology expertise into a powerful and wide-ranging membrane product portfolio perfectly complements Linde’s high expertise in plant engineering and gas separation. The combination offers the ideal conditions to jointly develop new markets for gas separation.”
The collaboration between Evonik and Linde has already resulted in a reference plant for helium purification in Mankota (Canada), which started up in August of this year; this first-of-its-kind helium purification facility uses a hybrid process of membrane and pressure-swing-adsorption (PSA) technology. The new plant processes 250,000 m3/d of crude gas, producing industrial-quality helium of 99.999% purity.