Process development results

In an in depth comparison of the cumulative knowledge discussed in Chapter 3, with what one could extract from the technological results reported in this Chapter, perhaps the first observation that one can make is the difference between the content of the biocatalyst development vs. process development results. The results on biocatalyst improvements constitute the majority of the open literature reports. The most important bottleneck holding advancement of the biodesulfurization technology is the ability to break the second C-S bond, releasing the sulfur from the organosulfur molecules. The IP portfolio does not provide a real solution for that problem. 

There are some theoretical developments and practical implementations of methods, allowing to solve 3D reconstruction problem. They differ on their technical characteristics, scheme of data collecting and processing, qualitative results of the obtained images. 

The propylene-based process developed by Sohio was able to displace all other commercial production technologies because of its substantial advantage in overall production costs, primarily due to lower raw material costs. Raw material costs less by-product credits account for about 60% of the total acrylonitrile production cost for a world-scale plant. The process has remained economically advantaged over other process technologies since the first commercial plant in 1960 because of the higher acrylonitrile yields resulting from the introduction of improved commercial catalysts. Reported per-pass conversions of propylene to acrylonitrile have increased from about 65% to over 80% (28,68—70). 

The ammonium chloride process, developed by Asahi Glass, is a variation of the basic Solvay process (9—11). It requires the use of soHd sodium chloride but obtains higher sodium conversions (+90%) than does the Solvay process. This is especially important ia Japan, where salt is imported as a soHd. The major difference from the Solvay process is that here the ammonium chloride produced is crystallized by cooling and through the addition of soHd sodium chloride. The resulting mother Hquor is then recycled to dissolve additional sodium chloride. The ammonium chloride is removed for use as rice paddy fertilizer. Ammonia makeup is generally suppHed by an associated synthesis plant. 

Process development unit (PDU) results with unspecified hardwood. 

Based on the bench-scale data, two coal-to-acetylene processes were taken to the pilot-plant level. These were the AVCO and Hbls arc-coal processes. The Avco process development centered on identifying fundamental process relationships (29). Preliminary data analysis was simplified by first combining two of three independent variables, power and gas flow, into a single enthalpy term. The variation of the important criteria, specific energy requirements (SER), concentration, and yield with enthalpy are indicated in Figure 12. As the plots show, minimum SER is achieved at an enthalpy of about 5300 kW/(m /s) (2.5 kW/cfm), whereas maximum acetylene concentrations and yield are obtained at about 7400 kW/(m /s) (3.5 kW/cfm). An operating enthalpy between these two values should, therefore, be optimum. Based on the results of this work and the need to demonstrate the process at... 

The unusual resiHence of ionomers combined with ease of processing have resulted in widespread replacement of balata mbber as golf-ball covers. In order to obtain desirable backspin characteristics, low glass-transition ionomer compositions have been developed (10). Transparent coatings on bowling pins promote both longer life and improved playing performance. 

Because the starting materials were optically active, the products were all pure enantiomers. Later, the synthetic scheme shown in Figure 5 was developed (22,45). Resolution of the racemic mixture was accompHshed at the penultimate stage and the optically active D-threo-amine (7) was converted to florfenicol (2). This synthetic process also resulted in the synthesis of thiamphenicol shown in Figure 6 using 1,1,2,3,3,3-hexafluoropropyl diethylamine (FPA) (46). More recently an improved method of synthesis of florfenicol has been developed (17). 

Selenium occurs in the slimes as intermetallic compounds such as copper silver selenide [12040-91 -4], CuAgSe disilver selenide [1302-09-6], Ag2Se and Cu2 Se [20405-64-5], where x < 1. The primary purpose of slimes treatment is the recovery of the precious metals gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and rhodium. The recovery of selenium is a secondary concern. Because of the complexity and variabiUty of slimes composition throughout the world, a number of processes have been developed to recover both the precious metals and selenium. More recently, the emphasis has switched to the development of processes which result in early recovery of the higher value precious metals. Selenium and tellurium are released in the later stages. Processes in use at the primary copper refineries are described in detail elsewhere (25—44). 

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. 

Modifications are usually the result of particular operating needs. Future improvements can be expected by process development rather than changes ia hardware (19). 

Process development on fluidized-bed pyrolysis was also carried out by the ConsoHdation Coal Co., culminating in operation of a 32 t/d pilot plant (35). The CONSOL pyrolysis process incorporated a novel stirred carbonizer as the pyrolysis reactor, which made operation of the system feasible even using strongly agglomerating eastern U.S. biturninous coals. This allowed the process to bypass the normal pre-oxidation step that is often used with caking coals, and resulted in a nearly 50% increase in tar yield. Use of a sweep gas to rapidly remove volatiles from the pyrolysis reactor gave overall tar yields of nearly 25% for a coal that had Eischer assay tar yields of only 15%. 

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