Patent benchmark Process Flowsheets & Simulations
Explore 4 validated, solved Patent benchmark simulation flowsheets in MaximaLabs — real components: methanol, water, lactic_acid, methyl_lactate, h2, oxygen. Open any one directly in your browser.
Solved via: PSRK, COOLPROP, BRINE, PENG-ROBINSON.
Patent benchmark: methyl lactate synthesis (CN104628563A)
Real patent replication, not an invented process: CN104628563A's acid-catalyzed lactate-ester route — lactic acid esterified with excess methanol, then purified by vacuum distillation — reproduced here as a continuous flowsheet. The patent's own worked methyl-lactate example reports 98.8% esterification conversion and 99.6% product purity at 120 degC/3h. This flowsheet's reactor conversion is set directly to the patent's reported 98.8% (not fitted); the vacuum column (0.2 atm, matching the patent's vacuum-distillation purification step) then splits the methanol and reaction water off the ester completely — zero methyl lactate leaves overhead — and delivers 97.8 mol% methyl lactate in the bottoms at 389.9 K. The property method is the whole story here, exactly as it was on the sulfolane extractive column. Written on Peng-Robinson, this example did not converge at all: every pair in a methanol / water / lactic-acid / methyl-lactate mixture is hydrogen-bonding, which van der Waals mixing cannot represent, and the column returned a partial profile carrying 2.60 mol/s of methyl lactate out of a column fed 1.98 — 32% more product than the reactor made, a 0.26 component-balance residual. (That wrong profile is where this example's previously-published 98.75% purity was read from; the number was retracted at the test level and is now corrected here.) A plain activity model cannot be used either, for a data reason rather than a physics one: neither lactic acid nor methyl lactate carries a regressed ideal-gas-Cp correlation, and the gamma-phi enthalpy path raises on that where a cubic quietly falls back to a corresponding-states estimate. PSRK is a cubic whose mixing is driven by UNIFAC, so it has both — and it converges to a 2.7e-06 component-balance residual, with methyl lactate and lactic acid each leaving in exactly the amount the reactor made.
5 unit ops • PSRK
223 0
View & openPatent benchmark: gas fermentation to single-cell protein (JP2024028821A)
The gas-fermentation process class JP2024028821A describes: hydrogen-oxidizing chemolithoautotrophic bacteria (the patent names Cupriavidus necator and Rhodococcus opacus strains) fixing CO₂ using H₂ as the electron donor to grow single-cell protein biomass. Built here with real physics closing two genuine gaps this session's fact-check found missing: gas-liquid mass transfer (Henry's-law dissolution + a volumetric kLa driving the H₂ dissolution rate) and chemolithoautotrophic growth stoichiometry (McCarty's electron-balance method combining the H₂-oxidation, O₂-reduction, and C₅H₇O₂N cell-synthesis half-reactions) — not a Monod-on-dissolved-substrate shortcut repurposed for a gas feed.
5 unit ops • COOLPROP
223 0
View & openPatent benchmark: enzymatic cannabinoid synthesis (US9359625B2)
Real patent replication: US9359625B2's THCA-synthase-catalyzed conversion of cannabigerolic acid (CBGA) into either THCA or CBCA depending on operating pH — closing the genuine enzyme-kinetics gap this session's fact-check found (only Monod biomass-growth kinetics existed anywhere in MaximaLabs, no Michaelis-Menten). The patent's own disclosed pH-selectivity data anchors this model: it reports 'catalysis at a lower pH... favored THCA... while... neutral pH... favored CBCA,' a ~10:1 THCA:CBCA ratio at pH 5.0, and CBCA dominant at pH 7.0 — fit here as a single-ionizable-group pH-titration switch (pKa_switch=6.0), which reproduces the reported 10:1 ratio at pH 5.0 exactly (that's how pKa_switch was chosen) and gives ~10:1 CBCA:THCA at pH 7.0 (matching the patent's 'CBCA exclusively' qualitatively, not to an exact published ratio, since the patent gives no numeric ratio at pH 7.0 to match). Reactor volume is sized to clear the patent's own disclosed '>20% conversion' commercial threshold (reaches ~25.0% here).
3 unit ops • BRINE
224 0
View & openPatent benchmark: selective C3 diene/acetylene hydrogenation (US6495732B1)
Real patent replication: US6495732B1's palladium-catalyzed selective hydrogenation of a cracked-gas C₃ stream, removing methylacetylene (propyne) and propadiene down to trace levels while leaving propylene and propane untouched — the patent's own Example 1 feed (82.7 mol% propylene, 2.37% methylacetylene, 1.30% propadiene) reacted here to '>99.5% removal of both dienes/acetylenes, no propylene-to-propane over-hydrogenation' (propane's mole fraction is unchanged before/after — the actual selectivity claim the patent is about).
6 unit ops • PENG-ROBINSON
223 0
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