Air separation process with single distillation column with segregated heat pump cycle

Claim 1

In a process for separating high purity pressurized oxygen from air in a pressurized, single distillation column wherein an air feed stream is compressed, water and carbon dioxide are removed from said air feed stream, said air stream is cooled and then introduced into an intermediate point of said distillation column; a gaseous nitrogen product stream is removed, at pressure, from the top of said distillation column as an overhead product stream; and a liquid phase oxygen product is removed, at pressure, from the bottom of the column, the improvement comprising providing reboil and reflux duty for said column with a segregated heat pump cycle comprising: (a) compressing a segregated heat pump fluid in a compressor; (b) cooling said compressed, segregated heat pump fluid against warming nitrogen and oxygen product streams; (c) splitting said cooled, compressed, segregated heat pump fluid into a first portion and a second portion; (d) heat exchanging said first portion against the liquid phase of the bottom of the distillation column to at least partially condense said first portion and reboil the liquid phase; (e) cooling said partially condensed first portion against the warming nitrogen product stream; (f) expanding the cooled, partially condensed first portion; (g) heat exchanging the expanded, cooled, partially condensed first portion against the overhead of the distillation column to control the reflux of the column; (h) heat exchanging said first portion from step (g) to recover refrigeration value; (i) expanding said second portion generated in step (c); (j) combining said first portion from step (h) and said expanded second portion to form a combined segregated heat pump compressor feed; (k) heat exchanging said combined segregated heat pump compressor feed to recover refrigeration value; and (l) feeding said combined compressor feed from step (k) to the compressor of step (a).