Simulated moving bed reactor technologies for chromatographic separation in industries

Significant improvement for chemical manufacturing sites can be achieved by coupling process units in an integrative manner. A properly designed process integration allows for significant enhancements e.g. productivity, selectivity, energy efficiency, safety and consumptions of auxiliary chemicals. This can also lead to increased complexity regarding apparatuses, design and control. Consequently, research is required to gain sufficient understanding of new concepts which is also prerequisite for acceptance in industry. Process integration is considered as a subclass of process intensification, which contains equipment and method replacing classical unit operations to bring a substantial increase in process’ efficiency. The simulated moving bed technology has been very popular for the last four decades as a continuous chromatography-based operation to separate binary mixtures. True moving bed chromatography (TMBC) is only a theoretical concept. Its simulation, SMBC is achieved by the use of a multiplicity of columns in series and a complex valve arrangement. Evidently SMB reactors provide high productivity compared to batch chromatographic separators. This combined with cost cutting of energy and raw material makes it an increasingly favoured in complex industrial separation replacing the seemingly ancient solvent extraction technique. Being a complex separation technique its optimization involves consideration of large number of operating parameters requiring advanced controllers and expert control engineers. In this era of technological advancements this technology is being underutilized in India and in many other countries due to unavailability of experts in its handling and process control.