Neon Production
Neon Production
Air is the only real source of neon. In the process of separation by low-temperature rectification most volatile components move into the first isolated part. It is collected from under the cover of the air-fractionating apparatus. This primary gas yields only 3 - 10 % of neon-helium mixture, and the rest of the fracture is nitrogen. It is natural because the volume concentration of neon in 1000 litres of air is 18.2 sm3 and the concentration of helium is 5 sm3. The mixture is then sent to the dephlegmator, that is a distillation tube, in which the most part of nitrogen is condensed. As a result the concentration of neon-helium binary mixture grows up to 35-40%. Another apparatus called dephlegmator-adsorber almost completes the nitrogen separation process. Depending on the degree of purification the final mixture contains 30-75% of neon and 10-25% of helium.