Comprehensive experimental study of adsorptive separation process using industrial paraxylene separation as a case study from equilibrium, kinetic and breakthrough points of view

In this research, separation of paraxylene from mixed-xylene using industrial Eluxyl adsorbent was investigated through batch and dynamic analysis methods at real operating conditions (9 bar and 175 degrees C). The Ba-faujasite exchanged commercial adsorbent (SPX-3000 fine) was characterized through the BET, XRD, FE-SEM, EDS, XRF, and TGA methods. The single and multicomponent equilibrium and single component kinetics of the adsorption of the mixed-xylene and para diethylbenzene as the desorbent in Eluxyl process were studied. It was found that the Langmuir and non-modified Langmuir (NML) models describe very well experimental data for single and multicomponent isotherms, respectively. Also, Pseudo-second-order kinetic model was selected to predict experimental results. Selective and non-selective volume of adsorbent were calculated to be 0.153 and 0.561, respectively through multicomponent breakthrough analysis. Selectivity factor of PX to MX, OX and EB were determined as 3.7, 3.96 and 3.3, respectively. Finally, a hierarchical method composed of the both batch and dynamic analysis were presented for the evaluation of the adsorbents for any other adsorptive separation. (C) 2022 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.