The new simulated moving bed pilot plant-modelling, simulation and application

The work deals with modelling and simulation of continuous chromatographic process and experiments on simulated moving bed (SMB) pilot plant. A design of particular station for chromatographic separation including an automatic system control is involved. Also, an application of SMB in the sugar technology was tested, especially for isolation of betaine from molasses. Molasses belongs to the main byproduct in the sugar production. Betaine is a nitrogen substance, which is widely used in the pharmaceutical industry.SMB chromatography is separation process based on the principle of liquid chromatography. In comparison with standard chromatography SMB process comes with advantage of higher productivity. One of disadvantages is difficult to trace the process at several places. For this reason concentration is measured at the outlets and concentration profile is computed with help of mathematical model. This profile is then used for setting of the working values.The first part of the work deals with modelling and simulation of the chromatographic process. It is also shown the simulation of the process. Then there are explained reasons for a new set-up of the SMB pilot plant and differences between original and modified SMB station.Experiments were carried out on the simulated moving bed pilot plant KCHS-SMB-8-N [Henke, S., Bubník, Z., Pour, V., Štarhová, H., Hinková, A., 2005a. Simulation and development of simulated moving bed unit. In: Proceedings of the 32nd International Conference of Slovak Society of Chemical Engineering, Tatranske Matliare, Slovakia; Henke, S., Bubník, Z., Kubát, M., Pour, V., Štarhová, H., 2005b. Modelování, simulace a vývoj řízení SMB. In: Sborník CHISA 2005, Srní], which was developed by the Department of Carbohydrate Chemistry and Technology, Institute of Chemical Technology, Prague and by the firm Mikropur, Hradec Králové. Presented experiments were carried out with model solution of molasses, especially with betaine–sucrose mixtures.