Abstract
Dynamic axial compression (DAC) columns are key elements in simulated moving bed, which is a chromatography process in drug industry and chemical engineering. In this study, rules for designing distributors are proposed based on mass conservation and validated by experiments, the computer aided design (CAD) and the computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Experimental works are conducted to choose feasible numerical parameters for simulations. In CFD, the transient laminar flow fields are governed by the momentum and species transport equations with Darcy's law to model the porous zone in the packed bed. Results show that CFD combined with CAD solid modelling is a good approach to explore detailed flow fields in DAC columns and carry out parameter analysis for innovative designs. For further testing and evaluation, a new model of compound distributor is designed, 3D printed and processed in factory for practical applications in preparative chromatography.
Highlights
Simulated moving bed (SMB) chromatography process, which is a multicolumn chromatography process, has been applied to various industrial fields, such as foods, petrochemicals, fine chemicals, and pharmaceuticals [1]
It is proposed to characterize in detailed hydrodynamics of Dynamic axial compression (DAC) columns based on the recent advances of flow characterisation by computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and to deduce numerical treatments that can be beneficial to simulations
Inside the DAC column, non-slip boundary conditions are used for the walls and the packed bed is viewed as a porous medium in which the flow of a Newtonian fluid is known to follow Darcy’s law at a low Reynolds number
Summary
Simulated moving bed (SMB) chromatography process, which is a multicolumn chromatography process, has been applied to various industrial fields, such as foods, petrochemicals, fine chemicals, and pharmaceuticals [1]. The SMB process can achieve high productivity and low solvent consumption [2] and allows significantly higher yield and purity compared to a batch chromatography [3, 4]. In DAC columns, the distributor (collector) plays a key role to make the plug flow in columns. Manufacturers in this field have been devoted to improving the distributor’s performance to raise the efficiency of their products from DAC columns [11, 12]. It is proposed to characterize in detailed hydrodynamics of DAC columns based on the recent advances of flow characterisation by CFD, and to deduce numerical treatments that can be beneficial to simulations. CFD is used to access the internal information inside the DAC column and the flow is considered to be laminar due to low flow speed in the micro-particle packed column [9, 17]
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