Separation of Gases

This fifth BOC Priestley conference held at the University of Birmingham followed a similar pattern to previous conferences in the series. The programme embraced many of the diverse scientific and religious interests of Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) who discovered oxygen and investigated the properties of a number of gases, in addition to his occupation as a preacher and minister of the Unitarian church. The scientific component of the programme for the fifth BOC Priestley conference was devoted to the separation of gases, a topic which currently offers a challenge to the intellect and skills of scientists, engineers and industrialists. The economics and eventual commercial success of many process operations depends crucially on the ease with which products of reaction can be separated in specific plant located downstream from the chemical reactor. Whilst distillation and absorption remain well established, and, in many circumstances, convenient and appropriate methods of separation, other methods of separation have begun to take precedence where it is perceived that an economic advantage accrues.
Most of these more recently developed techniques for large-scale gas separation were included as part of the conference scientific programme, which included invited lectures on separation by membranes, adsorption, high gravity separations and chemical methods of separation. Both fundamental scientific aspects of gas separation and the challenging intellectual aspects of process design were included in the programme.