Novel simulated moving-bed adsorber for the fractionation of gas mixtures

The separation of propylene–propane mixture is an energy intensive operation commercially practiced using cryogenic distillation. The separation by pressure swing adsorption has been studied as an alternative. A fixed-bed pressure swing adsorption yields the heavy component as a pure product. The product recovery and the productivity are not high. In a moving-bed process, because of the counter-current solid–gas contact, the separation achieved is similar to that of the fractionation by distillation. Although the moving-bed operation offers the upper limit for the performance of a cyclic adsorptive process, due to mechanical complexities in the handling of solids the ‘simulated’ moving-bed is preferred. By moving the inlet and outlet ports of streams located along the length of the bed, a moving-bed process can be realized in a fixed bed. We describe here a ‘moving-port’ system which permits injection or withdrawal of the fluid along the axial direction in a fixed bed. A fixed bed embedded with the moving-port systems emulates a simulated moving-bed adsorber. The proposed adsorber can fractionate a binary gas mixture into two product streams with high purities. It is similar to the Sorbex process of UOP but does not have the eluent as an additional separating agent. A parametric study indicates that high purity products and a higher productivity by an order of magnitude can be achieved with simulated moving-beds compared to the fixed beds.