Petroleum reforming principles

In the early 1970s, Union Oil developed and patented a chromatographic system based on the principle of a simulated moving bed (SMB) [6-8]. A schematic of a SMB unit is shown in Figure 1.4. Streams of the mobile phase (the desorbent ) and of the feed to separate are continuously injected into the column while streams of the less retained (the raffinate ) and the more retained components (the extract ) are continuously withdrawn, all at constant flow rates. The rotary valves switch periodically the positions in the columns where these streams enter or exit. The operation of SMB imits is discussed in detail in Chapter 17. Manufacturing facilities have been built and are operated for the fractionation of various petroleiun distillates, for example, the selective separation of p-xylene, o-xylene and ethylbenzene from the C7-C8 aromatic fraction of light petroleum reformates, the separation of olefins from paraffins in feed mixtures of hydrocarbons having 10 to 14... 

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