Air Separation Plant Market size and forecast, 2017-2027

The air separation plant also known as air separation unit market is steadily attracting attention in the chemical industry owing to a number of essential applications. For instance, the burgeoning demand for mass amounts of oxygen in coal gasification projects and steel manufacturing and the vast nitrogen requirement for chemical storage tanks, storing petroleum products, packing edible oils to protect them from oxidation. Air separation plants are used to separate atmospheric air into its basic components, which are primarily nitrogen and oxygen, along with argon and other rare gases. There are two types of separation plants for this purpose, i.e. cryogenic air separation plants and non-cryogenic air separation plants. Cryogenic air separation plants apply a low-temperature rectification process (using the difference between the boiling points of nitrogen, oxygen and argon to separate and purify these products). The key evaluation criteria used by manufacturers for the selection of cryogenic air separation plant technology are capital and operating expenditure, maintenance cost, ease of operation, plant and component reliability, process control features and safety, health, environment and quality standards. Apart from these factors, the history of projects carried out by the technology provider are also taken in account.