Continuous prediction technique for fast determination of cyclic steady state in simulated moving bed process

•We developed a continuous predicting method (CPM) for fast simulation of SMB.•CPM can save more than 50% computational time comparing with conventional method.•We recommended an acceleration factor of 0.5 as the starting value.•CPM is simple, efficient and facile to implement.

In the simulation of cyclic processes, such as simulated moving bed (SMB), the system should be equilibrated to reach a cyclic steady state (CSS) before evaluating the process performance. However, the conventional method of successive substitution is quite time-consuming. In this work, a continuous predicting method (CPM) is developed for fast determination of CSS in SMB. In CPM, the direct prediction of state variable at CSS and solving model equation are conducted alternately until CSS is reached. In order to give a guideline for the selection of the acceleration factor, CPM is applied on SMB process for enantioseparation of 1,1′-bi-2-naphtol racemate and with the optimized acceleration factor, 59% of computation time saved compared with successive substitution. In addition, this method is further successfully used in a sugar separation process. Given its efficiency and simplicity, this method could provide a useful tool for SMB simulations.