Development and study of an indigenous helium purifier based on low temperature high pressure adsorption of impurities

In collaboration with VECC, Kolkata, NIT, Rourkela has taken up the project of the development of cryosorption based helium purifier. The helium purifier has been designed for purifying helium containing 40% air impurities to a contaminant level below 50 ppm at a flow rate of 20Nm³/hr and operating pressure of 120 bar(g). Low pressure impure gas is recovered in gas bag from experimental set up. It is compressed, then purified by a shell & tube heat exchanger, a tube-in-tube heat exchanger, a subcooler, a liquid air separator and five LN₂ cooled activated charcoal adsorber columns in series. Purity monitoring, regeneration system and gas storage manifold have been provided. All the major components have been fabricated, assembled and commissioned at NIT, Rourkela. It has been successfully tested with low percentage of impurities and detailed testing is underway.