A new method supporting the design of simulated moving bed chromatographic reactors

In a chromatographic reactor, chemical or biochemical reactions are combined with a chromatographic separation. A conversion rate higher than chemical equilibrium as well as better yield or even an enhanced selectivity in comparison to conventional processes can be achieved by continuously removing the products from the reaction zone. Additionally, the combination of two unit operations in one apparatus leads to smaller capital expenditure. Due to the advantages of the Simulated Moving Bed concept recently, most of the work on chromatographic reactors has dealt with this process. In this paper a new method in order to estimate the effect of the reaction on the design of the reactor is introduced. Combined with the well-known triangle theory this allows a very good initial guess of the operating parameters that can be used for further process optimization based on dynamic simulation.