TY - JOUR
T1 - Two-column relay simulated moving-bed process for gas-phase separations
AU - Ribeiro, Rui P. P. L.
AU - Esteves, Isabel A. A. C.
AU - Mota, José P. B.
N1 - Financial support from FCT/MCTES (Portugal) through projects EXCL/QEQ-PRS/0308/2012, PTDC/AAC-AMB/108849/2008, PTDC/CTM/104782/2008 is gratefully acknowledged. The authors also acknowledge FCT/MCTES for financial support through grant SFRH/BPD/103533/2014 (Rui P. P. L. Ribeiro) and FCT Investigator contract IF/01016/2014 (Isabel A. A. C. Esteves).
This work was partially supported by the Associate Laboratory Research Unit for Green Chemistry - Technologies and Processes Clean - LAQV which is financed by national funds from FCT/MCTES (UID/QUI/50006/2013) and co-financed by the ERDF under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER - 007265).
PY - 2017/7/12
Y1 - 2017/7/12
N2 - A new two-column, relay, simulated moving-bed (2-column R-SMB) process has been designed and implemented experimentally for the first time for gas-phase separation. Contrary to classical SMB configurations, in a R-SMB process the stream exiting a column is never partially withdrawn from the system, i.e., it is not divided into an outlet stream and a stream that is redirected to another column; instead, the stream exiting a column is handled in a relay mode: at any instant of the cycle the stream is either fully collected as product/waste or completely diverted to another column. In the present work the R-SMB concept is applied to the simplest case of separation of an isothermal, binary trace gas mixture. The separation of carbon dioxide (CO2)/methane (CH4) mixtures using nitrogen (N2) as carrier gas is evaluated as a proof-of-concept. The process is designed and optimized by model-based computer simulation and the obtained results are validated experimentally at laboratory-scale using a newly designed two-column SMB unit. The optimized 2-column R-SMB process produces extract and raffinate products both with 99%-purity (in an eluent free basis). The 2-column R-SMB performance is compared with the classical four-zone SMB and VARICOL-type configurations, and it is shown that at low feed throughput the process performances are coincident.
AB - A new two-column, relay, simulated moving-bed (2-column R-SMB) process has been designed and implemented experimentally for the first time for gas-phase separation. Contrary to classical SMB configurations, in a R-SMB process the stream exiting a column is never partially withdrawn from the system, i.e., it is not divided into an outlet stream and a stream that is redirected to another column; instead, the stream exiting a column is handled in a relay mode: at any instant of the cycle the stream is either fully collected as product/waste or completely diverted to another column. In the present work the R-SMB concept is applied to the simplest case of separation of an isothermal, binary trace gas mixture. The separation of carbon dioxide (CO2)/methane (CH4) mixtures using nitrogen (N2) as carrier gas is evaluated as a proof-of-concept. The process is designed and optimized by model-based computer simulation and the obtained results are validated experimentally at laboratory-scale using a newly designed two-column SMB unit. The optimized 2-column R-SMB process produces extract and raffinate products both with 99%-purity (in an eluent free basis). The 2-column R-SMB performance is compared with the classical four-zone SMB and VARICOL-type configurations, and it is shown that at low feed throughput the process performances are coincident.
KW - Gas separation
KW - Relay SMB
KW - Simulated moving bed
KW - Two-column chromatography
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85016049955&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.seppur.2017.03.037
DO - 10.1016/j.seppur.2017.03.037
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85016049955
SN - 1383-5866
VL - 182
SP - 19
EP - 28
JO - Separation and Purification Technology
JF - Separation and Purification Technology
ER -