Initial stream setup

Stopped after 180 h time on stream and the reaction setup was evacuated for 10 min at 100 °C. When the experiment was continued after this procedure, the activity had indeed increased by 80% from TOFs of initially 60 h to 108 h Within the next 20 h of reaction the TOFs decreased again from 108 h to 76 h and the selectivity re-estabhshed at 95% n-butanal. A second vacuum period of 10 min resulted in improved TOFs, as depicted in Fig. 4. hi both cases the observed overshooting of the activity directly after evacuation might be caused by either simultaneous removal of CO ligand of the Rh-3-complex leading to higher activity or a rearrangement of the active surface due to sudden evaporation of dissolved heavies. In the first case, a lower selectivity would be expected, which was indeed observed directly after the evacuation. Thereafter, the catalyst solution was re-saturated with CO gas and both the activity and the selectivity approached the initial levels. 

It may be worthwhile to check the outcome if the column sequence is reversed. Sending the feed initially to the low-pressure column, the bottoms will be essentially pure benzene and the distillate would be close to the 36 mole% ethanol azeotrope. If this stream is sent to the high-pressure column, with its ethanol concentration lower than the high-pressure azeotrope (44.8 mole% ethanol), the bottoms would again be essentially pure benzene and the distillate would be the azeotrope. Therefore this setup would not produce the required separation. 

The final job in the steady-state design is to achieve the desired specification of an ASTM 95% point of 375 °F (ASTM D-86). An initial guess of 20,000 B/D for the liquid distillate flow rate gives an ASTM 95% point of 353 °F. This is lower than the specification, which indicates that more material can be taken overhead. Increasing the flow rate carries more higher-boiling material into the naphtha product. To display the TBP and ASTM boiling point values for the process streams, go to Setup, Report Options, Stream, Property Sets and select Petro. 

An initial charge of 2968 g of raw ASR was separated by vibrating screen into the following fractions PUR foam (with contaminated oil), 275 g plastic rich stream. 1906 g and fines, 787 g. The composition of the resulting solvent cleaned products were as follows [Bonsignote et al., 1991] cleaned PUR foam, 178 g PVC7ABS composite, 180 g PP, S4.S g. Due to the size of the setup, no conclusions can yet be made on the effectiveness of such a system. Plans are underway to scale up to a 20 kg pilot lab size separation and solvent extraction system. 

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