Effect of dead volume on performance of simulated moving bed process

Abstract

The volume of surrounding equipments (pipe transfer lines and valves) in the simulated moving bed (SMB) unit, which is called the dead volume, is modeled as bed-head, bed-tail and bed-line. Since the dead volume can be significant especially in industrial-scale SMB units, the consideration of dead volume has been required for high performance operation. In this study, a simple and unified approach based on the method of characteristics (MOC), called the extended node model, is established to solve fluid concentration dynamics within dead volumes. The computational efficiency of the approach is evaluated for three case studies of a standard four-zone SMB process with a linear adsorption equilibrium model. Insertion of one zone to flush the fluid trapped in extract bed-line into the standard four-zone SMB improves substantially purity, while recovery is kept constant.