Autoclave development

Bretsznajder A process for extracting aluminum from clays and a variety of aluminous wastes by continuous digestion with concentrated sulfuric acid in an autoclave. Developed in Poland in the 1980s but not yet commercialized. 

Laboratory experiments below 800 K and 100 MPa can be conducted with sealed autoclaves developed initially by Morey etal Figure 1(a) shows this type of vessel, which is to be wholly put into a furnace. The liner and the seal disk are made of an inactive metal such as silver or gold. Since the pressure caimot be measured directly, one should calculate it from the degree of fill and the pressure-volume-temperature PVT) data of water. 

For most vapor-phase catalytic reactions, use a gradientless reactor like the back-mixed catalyst autoclave developed by J. M. Berty (1). This reactor permits the independent variation of mass- and space-velocities and the direct observation of reaction rates. 

High Pressure in the Chemical Industry. The use of high pressure in industry may be traced to early efforts to Hquefy the so-called permanent gases using a combination of pressure and low temperature. At about the same time the chemical industry was becoming involved in high pressure processes. The discovery of mauveine in 1856 led to the development of the synthetic dye industry which was well estabUshed, particularly in Germany, by the end of the century. Some of the intermediate compounds required for the production of dyes were produced, in autoclaves, at pressures of 5-8 MPa (725-1160 psi). 

An independent development of a high pressure polymerization technology has led to the use of molten polymer as a medium for catalytic ethylene polymerization. Some reactors previously used for free-radical ethylene polymerization at a high pressure (see Olefin polymers, low density polyethylene) have been converted to accommodate catalytic polymerization, both stirred-tank and tubular autoclaves operating at 30—200 MPa (4,500—30,000 psig) and 170—350°C (57,83,84). CdF Chimie uses a three-zone high pressure autoclave at zone temperatures of 215, 250, and 260°C (85). Residence times in all these reactors are short, typically less than one minute. 

The selection of an appropriate steam-sterilization cycle must be made after a carefiil study of the nature of the articles to be sterilized, the type and number of organisms present, type and size of each package, and type of packaging material used. Cycle-development studies may be conducted using fiiU autoclave loads. 

Most commercial tellurium is recovered from electrolytic copper refinery slimes (8—16). The tellurium content of slimes can range from a trace up to 10% (see Seleniumand selenium compounds). Most of the original processes developed for the recovery of metals of value from slimes resulted in tellurium being the last and least important metal produced. In recent years, many refineries have changed their slimes treatment processes for faster recovery of precious metals (17,18). The new processes have in common the need to remove the copper in slimes by autoclave leaching to low levels (<1%). In addition, this autoclave pretreatment dissolves a large amount of the tellurium, and the separation of the tellurium and copper from the solution which then follows places tellurium recovery at the beginning of the slimes treatment process. 

Liquefaction. Liquefaction of coal to oil was first accompHshed in 1914. Hydrogen was placed with a paste of coal, heavy oil, and a small amount of iron oxide catalyst at 450° and 20 MPa (200 atm) in stirred autoclaves. This process was developed by the I. G. Earbenindustrie AG to give commercial quaUty gasoline as the principal product. Twelve hydrogenation plants were operated during World War II to make Hquid fuels (see CoAL... 

Scale-Up Fermenters ranging from about two to over 100 hters (0.07-3.5 fP) have been used for research and development, but the smaller sizes provide too httle volume for sampling and are difficult to replicate, whue large vessels are expensive and use too much medium. Autoclavable small fermenters that are placed in a water bath for temperature control are less expensive than vessels with jackets or coils, but much labor is required for handling them. Pressure vessels that... 

Mention has already been made in this chapter of metallocene-catalysed polyethylene (see also Chapter 2). Such metallocene catalysts are transition metal compounds, usually zirconium or titanium. Incorporated into a cyclopentadiene-based structure. During the late 1990s several systems were developed where the new catalysts could be employed in existing polymerisation processes for producing LLDPE-type polymers. These include high pressure autoclave and... 

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