Exxonmobil Chemical Patents Inc.

Georgia Tech Research Corporation

Siwei Guo

Yoshiaki Kawajiri

Gaurav Agrawal

Dana Lynn Pilliod

Michael Salciccioli

Michael W Weber

Jason Bentley

Jeevan Sahib Abichandani

John Roger Porter

John D Ou

The process involves the use of two rotary valves to implement Varicol operation of a simulated moving bed apparatus to separate a product from at least one multicomponent feed. In a particular embodiment, paraxylene is separated from a mixture of C8 aromatic hydrocarbons. The use of the Varicol process further enhances the separation of the desired product and provides flexibility with a simulated moving bed apparatus using dual rotary valves.

Simulated moving bed separation process

A process to separate paraxylene from a mixture of paraxylene, metaxylene, orthoxylene, and ethylbenzene in a commercial simulated moving bed apparatus in a reduced number of beds is provided, allowing an additional separation to be conducted in the remaining beds. This additional separation may separate another xylene isomer, ethylbenzene, or a non-aromatic Chydrocarbon from the raffinate stream produced by the first separation. A PowerFeed process is used to recover paraxylene in a first adsorption zone containing 8-16 beds of a conventional 24-bed simulated moving bed adsorption apparatus, and then a second separation may be conducted in a second adsorption zone containing the remaining beds.

Xylene separation process

A process is described for separating paraxylene from a multicomponent fluid mixture of C8 aromatics. A mixture of C8 aromatics is fed to a simulated moving-bed adsorptive apparatus. The location of the feed to the apparatus is moved at set intervals. The rate of flow of feed to the apparatus is varied during each interval to enhance the separation of paraxylene from the multicomponent mixture.

Growing community of inventors

Atlanta, GA, United States of America

Siwei Guo