Organic ternary mixture separation and purification using chromatography: Design, operation, and optimization

Background: From the improvement of raw material production and process, environmental friendliness has been silently packaged into commodities and integrated into society. Traditional batch chromatography methods are often used for separating succinic acid but incur large wastewater treatment costs and low efficiency. Methods: The process design of simulated-moving-bed cascades (SMBC) for separating organic ternary mixture is proposed to address environmentally friendly raw material production methods with a more resource-saving process. Through dynamic modeling, numerical analysis, separation theory, and optimization methods, SMBC model is validated and scale-up by using Aspen Chromatography. Finding: According to the adsorptivity and selectivity of different adsorbents, two scenarios of the SMBC for separating the organic ternary mixture of succinic acid, formic acid, and acetic acid are investigated. The results show that the SMBC using Amberchrom-CG300C and Reillex 425 resins could achieve the purity of each organic acid up to 96.8∼99.9%, and the corresponding recovery ratio is around 97.7∼99.9%.