Processes, commercial Hypersorption

Hypersorption A continuous chromatographic separation process using a moving bed. Invented in 1919 by F. D. Soddy (famed for his work on isotopes) at Oxford and developed commercially for petroleum refinery separations by the Union Oil Company of California in 1946. Six plants were built in the late 1940s, using activated carbon as the adsorbent. The process was abandoned because attrition of the bed particles proved uneconomic. 

Sorbex is the generic name used by UOP for their simulated countercurrent sorption process which has been successfully developed for a variety of large-scale commercial separations. All Sorbex processes in current operation operate in the liquid phase, but in principle the process could also be applied to a vapor phase system. In order to understand the Sorbex process it is simplest to consider a true isothermal countercurrent displacement desorption system, as sketched in Figure 12.11. Such a system is similar in its essential features to the Hypersorption system but without the additional complexity of the thermal swing. 

Many industrial countercurrent fractionation processes for the separation of components operate on the principle of either the three and four section cascade or the simulated moving bed. A summary of simulated moving bed and countercurrent fractionation processes is given in Table S.l. With the exception of the Hypersorption process all are presently operated commercially. 

---