Oxygen Separation/Enrichment From Atmospheric Air Using Magnetizing Force: Air Flow in a Duct Under Magnetic Field Gradient
Oxygen is paramagnetic gas and it has relatively high magnetic susceptibility. On the contrary, nitrogen is diamagnetic gas and it has relatively low and negative magnetic susceptibility. This results in counter magnetizing forces acting on these gases. The possibility of oxygen separation/enrichment from atmospheric air flow using a magnetizing force was investigated numerically. Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method was utilized to obtain distribution of oxygen concentration of air flow in a parallel-plate duct under a strong magnetic field gradient. The molecular movement was calculated by taking into account the magnetizing forces on the molecules. The computations were performed for a wide range of pressure and magnetic flux density gradient. The simulation results showed that there is a possibility of oxygen separation/enrichment from decompressed air under a strong magnetic field gradient.