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SMB chromatography Process Flowsheets & Simulations

Explore 2 validated, solved SMB chromatography simulation flowsheets in MaximaLabs — real components: r_ibuprofen, s_ibuprofen, ethanol, fructose, glucose, water. Open any one directly in your browser.

Solved via: PENG-ROBINSON.

⭐ Featured
FEED
Desorbent
SMB
Extract
Raffinate
Chiral API plant, Visp, Switzerland

Chiral API purification: continuous SMB chromatography

A racemic active pharmaceutical ingredient (R/S enantiomers, dilute in ethanol eluent) is resolved continuously by simulated moving bed chromatography — the workhorse of chiral-drug manufacture that legacy steady-state flowsheet simulators have no native model for (engineers script it in MATLAB). This uses the native SMB unit op, which solves the standard steady-state True Moving Bed equivalent: a 4-zone counter-current equilibrium-stage cascade whose zone flow-rate ratios sit inside the triangle-theory separation region, so the more-retained enantiomer reports to the extract and the other to the raffinate — the separation is driven by the chiral adsorption selectivity (the two enantiomers are otherwise thermodynamically identical). Honesty note: this is the TMB steady-state equivalent, not the transient multi-column process with discrete port switching; stages are ideal equilibrium stages (no mass-transfer resistance / axial dispersion); the isotherm affinities are illustrative screening values.

5 unit ops • PENG-ROBINSON

19 0

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FEED
Water
SMB
Extract
Raffinate
Corn wet-milling plant, Decatur, Illinois, USA

High-fructose corn syrup: SMB glucose/fructose separation

The single largest-volume industrial SMB in the world — separating fructose from glucose to make 55-HFCS. A glucose/fructose isomerate (dilute in water eluent) feeds the native SMB unit op; on a Ca²⁺-form ion-exchange resin fructose is the more-retained sugar, so it reports to the extract (the sweetener product) while glucose leaves in the raffinate (recycled to the isomerase reactor in a real plant). Solved as the steady-state True Moving Bed equivalent — a purely isotherm-driven liquid separation, so the sugars need no vapor-liquid-equilibrium data. Honesty note: TMB steady-state equivalent (not the transient port-switching process), ideal equilibrium stages, illustrative isotherm affinities capturing the real fructose > glucose retention order.

5 unit ops • PENG-ROBINSON

18 0

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