Adsorption, Liquid Separation

Abstract

Nearly every chemical manufacturing operation requires the use of separation processes to recover and purify the desired product. Liquid‐phase adsorption has long been used for the removal of contaminants present at low concentrations in process streams such as in deodorization of water, decolorization of sugar, and ion exchange of fermentation broth. Liquid‐phase simulated moving bed (SMB) processes are being increasingly used for bulk separation of a whole range of molecules whose molecular properties are very similar. Examples are p ‐xylene from C 8 aromatics, normal paraffins from iso‐paraffins, fructose from glucose, and chiral molecules in the pharmaceutical industry. When it comes to the separation of close boiling molecules, SMB processes generally provide a better alternative to other conventional means of separation from both operating and capital costs point of view. This article reviews the application of liquid‐phase adsorption processes in the hydrocarbon, industrial chemicals, food, and pharmaceutical industry. Special emphasis is given to the class of processes referred to as SMB processes including fundamental SMB principles , and the general applicability and guidelines for SMB design. The paper also illustrates several examples of SMB applications in the petrochemical industry and its recent growth in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry.

Simulated Moving Bed Technology: Overview and Use in Biorefineries

“…In practice there are two types of continuous chromatography operations prevalent in the industry. Moving bed operation [9] where the actual adsorbent bed moves and another one is a simulated moving bed [10] where the movement of the beds is simulated by series of valves [11,12].…”

“…Equilibrium data published in the literature [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] can be used to identify a suitable adsorbent. The order of affinity of various chemical species is; saturated hydrocarbons, aromatic hydrocarbon, halogenated hydrocarbons, ethers, esters, ketones, amines, alcohols, carboxylic acids [10]. For non-polar components the widely used adsorbent is activated carbon or modified silica.…”

“…Simulated Moving Bed Technology: Overview and Use in Biorefineries DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99991 carbohydrates, and biochemicals [10,[23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]. Recently, a lot of process developments happened at Orochem Technologies with which the author was directly involved either in the R&D phase [22,[43][44][45] or in the commercialization phase [46][47][48][49][50].…”

Simulated Moving Bed Chromatography: From Concept to Proof‐of‐Concept

“…Continuous industrial-scale adsorption processes are well known for their efficiency [1]. The operation of a continuous countercurrent moving bed chromatographic apparatus (from now on referred as true moving bed, TMB) in particular, enhances the mass transfer driving force, allowing a better use of the adsorbent and thus, permitting increased productivity values (higher processed throughput using less packing material).…”

“…The operation of a continuous countercurrent moving bed chromatographic apparatus (from now on referred as true moving bed, TMB) in particular, enhances the mass transfer driving force, allowing a better use of the adsorbent and thus, permitting increased productivity values (higher processed throughput using less packing material). The TMB also permits the achievement of high-purity products, even in the case of active species low resolution (reduced selectivity) as well as less dilute product streams and thus, reduced solvent recovery duty (eluent/desorbent), the opposite of traditional batch elution chromatography [1][2][3]. Nonetheless, with this countercurrent mode of operation it is necessary to move both the fluids as the solid phases.…”