Design of a gas phase simulated moving bed for propane/propylene separation

Development of gas‐phase SMB technology for light olefin/paraffin separations

“…The posterior sample analysis is performed by a gas chromatograph (GC-Shimadzu, GC-2010 Plus), equipped with a flame ionization detector (FID). For the study presented here, the GC was fitted with a capillary column (Alumina 30 m 3 0.53 mm), and the FID operated at 523 K. The GC was operated isothermally with an oven temperature of 333 K, a helium carrier gas flow rate of 12.3 ml STP min 21 and a split ratio of 60. Data acquisition of the set-up was accomplished using the same Labview interface that registers the values of time, flow rates, temperatures and pressures.…”

“…Before performing the experiments, the columns were packed with the adsorbent and activated under 1.0 SLPM helium flow at 593 K for 16 h. The heating to 593 K was done with a rate of 0.5 K min 21 . The cooling of the columns to the ambient temperature was also performed under 1.0 SLPM helium flow.…”

“…The high energy requirements and the increasing demand have been the driving forces to develop new technologies and/or materials which must be cheaper, yet environmentally friendly. Among the competing alternatives towards this end, cyclic adsorption processes such as vacuum pressure swing adsorption (VPSA) [16][17][18][19][20] and simulated moving bed (SMB) [21][22][23] technologies appears to be the most promising and energy-efficient options.…”

“…For such, the regeneration step must be performed at high vacuum (0.01 kPa). 45 Our group explored the SMB technology for olefin/paraffin separation in gas-phase by computer simulation 21,46 and a patent on this technology to separate propylene from propane with high performance was filed. 47 Since the development of the early systems, the SMB technology for olefin enrichment gained more and more interest, since it can be a very attractive alternative to obtain high purity products at a similarly high recovery, even in the cases where the separation factor is near unity.…”

Advanced Nanostructured Molecular Sieves for Energy Efficient Industrial Separations

“…These aslternatives include gas phase pressure swing adsorption (PSA), [2,3] vacuum swing adsorption (VSA), [4,5] kinetic adsorption separation, [6] and simulated moving bed (SMB) adsorption. [7] The traditional PSA and VSA systems have been found to suffer from large mass transfer resistances leading to long step cycles in the VSA case, and poor propylene recoveries (<30%) in the PSA and kinetic separation cases. [8] The SMB process has attracted attention for this separation as it has been successfully applied to a number of large petrochemical separation processes such as p-xylene separation from its isomers, n-paraffins from branched and cyclic hydrocarbons, olefins from paraffins, glucose-fructose separation in the sugar processing industry, and several new applications in the pharmaceutical and fine chemical industries.…”