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I have a 99,9% oxygen, with 0,1% is CO. Is it possible to separate the CO from oxygen in this mixture? The closer the percentage to 0 for CO, the better.

I've read about separation of oxygen from air, which involves liquifying them and conduct a fractional distillation (link of the article as attached).

My questions are:

  1. Is this method possible for this case? Does the small portion of CO hinder the possibility for further separation?
  2. Is it possible to separate them with an absorption process?
  3. Is there any other way that could be easier and cheaper?

Pardon me if the question sounds funny, because I have no background in this area. Any kind of help will be very much appreciated!

el-cheapo
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  • What are the freezing points of O2 and CO? – Solar Mike Aug 15 '21 at 12:48
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    My first though is react with a platinum catayst to make CO2, then to bubble the gas though pure water and let the CO2 dissolve into the water. CO2 is about 100 times more soluble in water than oxygen. Not sure how far this can take it, though. CO isn't normally a significant contaminant in oxygen. Nitrogen and argon are the usual bugbears. – Phil Sweet Aug 15 '21 at 18:08
  • Of course it's possible. Whether or not it's feasible is subject to how important it is to save the CO. Usually CO is burned off into CO2, not separated. You would then use CO2 absorbers to get rid of the CO2. – Tiger Guy Aug 16 '21 at 13:08
  • Do you need to save all the O2? If you allow the O2 to convert CO into CO2, is that an allowable final result? – Carl Witthoft Aug 17 '21 at 13:00
  • @SolarMike in case that wasn't rhetorical, O2 is 54 K and 90 K (approx) while CO is 68 K and 82 K , so in theory cooling to 89K and extracting the liquid would suffice -- but I don't know the solubility rate of CO in liquid O2. – Carl Witthoft Aug 17 '21 at 13:04
  • Possibly helpful: https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_to_separate_CO_CO2_O2_gas_mixture_to_pure_components_in_Aspen , https://patents.google.com/patent/US3823529A/en – Carl Witthoft Aug 17 '21 at 13:14
  • some context might help. The CO2 route is certainly appealing. What are the conditions causing the favoring of CO instead of CO2 currently? – Abel Aug 18 '21 at 00:33
  • @CarlWitthoft its allowed, if that is possible I'm willing to hear the idea – el-cheapo Aug 19 '21 at 03:26
  • @TigerGuy doesn't burning the CO will also burn the O2? – el-cheapo Aug 19 '21 at 03:31
  • @CarlWitthoft that research gate link is certainly very helpful! thank you – el-cheapo Aug 19 '21 at 03:34
  • @bintangf_m, it would burn some of the oxygen, certainly not all of it. Phil Sweet's platinum catalyst is just burning it like a catalytic converter, tho it requires a high temperature. Tho my assumption was that you want 100% oxygen, not just 0% CO. – Tiger Guy Aug 19 '21 at 06:23

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