Hydrocarbon gas process

Industrial analysis of hydrocarbon gases 25 years ago was limited almost to Orsat-type absorptions and combustion, resulting in crude approximations and inadequate qualitative information. The more precise method of Shepherd (56) was available but too tedious for frequent use. A great aid to the commercial development of hydrocarbon gas processes of separation and synthesis was the development and commercialization of high efficiency analytical gas distillation units by Podbielniak (50). In these the gaseous sample is liquefied by refrigeration, distilled through an efficient vertical packed column, the distillation fractions collected as gas and determined manometrically at constant volume. The operation was performed initially in manually operated units, more recently in substantially automatic assemblies. 

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