METHOD FOR PURIFYING HYDROGEN

PURPOSE:To obtain purified H2 useful for fine chemical industry, etc., in high purity and yield at a low cost, by introducing a raw material gas containing H2, etc., into a specific column, introducing a gas discharged by pressure equalizing operation into other columns, etc., and treating the gas. CONSTITUTION:A raw material gas containing H2 and one or more impure components, such as CH4, is fed to a column 1 of an H2 purifier by an adsorption column chromatography consisting of the first column 1.sixth column 6, etc., at 10-60 deg.C and 0.1-50cm/sec flow velocity under 3-30kg/cm G and subjected to adsorption operation. The resultant crude purified gas is then fed through a communication pipe 23 to the column 5. On the other hand the column 2 is connected to the column 3 after completing sweeping operation to introduce the discharged gas from the column bottom pipe 32 into the intermediate tray of the column 3 by equalizing operation to carry out vacuum operation. The raw material gas is subsequently fed to the column 2 to carry out sweeping operation. The above-mentioned operations are successively repeated and carried out in the columns 1-4 to provide a crude purified gas, which is then fed to the columns 5 and 6 to successively carry out the operation similar to those described above. Purifying operation is carried out to recover the purified H2 from product pipes 38 and 39.