Coupling of simulated moving bed and crystallization

In recent years, Simulated Moving Bed (SMB) process has been proved capable of separating a wide range of racemic mixtures with high purities. Alternatively, crystallization, a relatively cheaper process, offers the possibility to achieve enantiometric enrichment too. However, a successful enantioseparation of a crystallization process is determined by the composition of the feed to the crystallizer and the form of the ternary phase diagram. Very often a certain degree of enrichment is required before the crystallization step for a complete separation of enantiomers.
In this project, we investigate the feasible productivity gain from the coupling of simulated moving bed (SMB) and crystallization processes for the separation of Troger’s base enantiomers. It is important to note that quantitative evaluation of such a hybrid process crucially depends on the formulation of an appropriate objective function with proper constraints for any realistic gain. Therefore, a suitable objective function is formulated and a genetic algorithm is used to optimize the individual processes alone, and the combined process. Productivity improvement from the combined process for different purity values under optimum SMB operating conditions and optimum distribution of the separation job to the respective processes would be ascertained in this project.