Scale‐up of adsorptive styrene drying

Abstract

This work is focused on the analysis of the scale‐up process of styrene drying by adsorption onto activated alumina as a necessary step in the manufacture of styrene–butadiene rubber. In a previous work, the mathematical model was developed and the design parameters were estimated from the fitting of the model to experimental results obtained in a laboratory set‐up. The obtained model and parameters have been used to simulate the behaviour of a pilot plant that contains up to 56 times more sorbent stating their validity after comparison with experimental results. Finally, the behaviour of an industrial plant presently at work, was also satisfactorily described. The ability of the model to simulate experimental results obtained on three different scales checks its adequacy for process design and optimization. © 2002 Society of Chemical Industry

Analysis of the elimination process of polymerisation inhibitors from styrene by means of adsorption

“…20 Figure 2 shows a flow diagram of the pilot plant set-up. It consisted of a tank of 0.2 m 3 capacity that included a level control that permitted filling from a main container of styrene as soon as its level decreased.…”

“…A pilot plant was built which operated with the same flow regime as in the experiments carried out at laboratory-scale. 20 With the proposed model and the corresponding parameters a simulation of a breakthrough curve for the pilot plant conditions was made and it was compared with experimental data, as shown in Fig 8. From this figure it can be deduced that the experimental data are well described by the predicted breakthrough curve; therefore the validity of the presented model and the parameters obtained to describe the process on a larger scale has been confirmed.…”

Pervaporation Technology for the Dehydration of Solvents and Raw Materials in the Process Industry

“…[21][22][23][24] Cyclohexane is used as a solvent and reaction medium in the manufacture of different types of synthetic rubbers. In the process developed by the Spanish Company Dynasol Elastomeros, which produces 80,000 tons per year of products based on styrene, the reaction is based on anionic polymerization in solution.…”