SMB Simulating moving bed
Process intensification is one of the most promising tools for improving current technologies.
This requires dealing in most cases with complex systems where many different and often interacting physicochemical phenomena take place simultaneously.
Continuous reactive chromatography, implemented through the simulated moving bed reactor technology, represents a novel example of such an intensified process.
The integration of reaction and separation of the corresponding products in one single unit allows, in addition to obvious savings in equipment costs, significant improvements in process performance, particularly in the case of equilibrium limited reactions.
An interesting technology is the integration of chemical reaction and adsorptive separation into one single unit, i.e. reactive chromatography.
The underlying principle is a continuous process in which a reactive fluid is contacted with a solid adsorbent phase in a counter-current manner.
The practical implementation of this so-called true counter-current (TCC) unit is difficult due to the movement of the solid, while an equivalent unit can easily be realized by simply redesigning the TCC unit with reference to an observer moving with the solid phase.
This leads to the simulated moving bed (SMB) unit, where a certain number of fixed beds are connected in series to form a closed loop, and the counter-current movement of the solid and liquid phase is simulated by periodically shifting the fluid inlets and outlets in the direction of the fluid flow.
PuriTech's ION-IX technology offers all chemical, physical and mechanical advantages over the best available technologies.
The ION-IX technology offers a True Counter Current Ion eXchange ( CCIX ).
