Adsorption processes

Claim 1

In an adsorption process utilising a plurality of adsorbers with the following successive operating stages: isobaric production at so-called high pressure in equidirectional flow on several adsorbers at the same time, at least one decompression in equidirectional flow by balancing with another adsorber which is in the course of recompression in contradirectional flow, decompression to intermediate pressure in equidirectional flow, final decompression to so-called low pressure in contradirectional flow, elution at the said low pressure in contradirectional flow, recompression in contradirectional flow by at least one balancing action, final recompression in contradirectional flow by derivation of a part of the production flow, the improvement which consists in that the gas originating from the said decompression to intermediate pressure is fed into a buffer tank and the gas used for elution is drawn from the said buffer tank, and in that each adsorber has an operating cycle delayed by 1/nth of a cycle period (T) with respect to a preceding one (n being the number of adsorbers), and in that each production stage has a duration of (x/n)T (x being the number of adsorbers in simultaneous production), with "n" greater than or equal to 6, and "x" greater than or equal to 2, and in that the time period to decompress each adsorber to an intermediate pressure is less than the time period to elute each adsorber, and in that the gas drawn from the buffer tank for elution of an adsorber is supplied to that buffer tank by at least two different adsorbers.