Doubts about isotope precision distillation packed columns
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The isotope precision distillation process requires several months of equilibration time. The feed materials are A and B (where B is the isotope of A, and it is the product); A is the light component while B is the heavy component. A cascade of 3 columns is used, with packed columns being employed. It was recently found that the concentration of Product B does not meet the standard (the required concentration of Product B at the bottom of Tower 3 is 90%). Currently, the feed concentration in Tower 1 is 0.3%, the concentration at the bottom of Tower 1 is 1%, the concentration at the bottom of Tower 2 is 15%, and the concentration at the bottom of Tower 3 is 88%. In this cascade system, both the output and concentration were normal in the past; it is only recently that the products have started to fail to meet the required standards. I don’t have a good way to solve this problem either right now. I’m simply performing a reduction in volume, cutting the amount of product at the bottom of the 3 towers by 10%. After a month, it was found that the concentration met the standards, but the yield decreased by 10%. In the worst case, the packing efficiency would be low, and I would need to replace all the packing inside the tower. Are there any XDJM users in the same field who can offer some advice to solve this problem?
Compile the feed parameters and operational parameters of each tower, and compare them with the normal parameters from before to determine which tower’s parameters are abnormal. Regarding the tower, it’s possible that the distributor or the packing is blocked.
1. As mentioned above, by comparing the current production conditions with those from before, it will be clear at a glance what changes have taken place in the operations. First, it is necessary to confirm whether the operations are consistent; otherwise, if a problem with the tower internals is assumed right away, things will get quite complicated. 2. You said that the yield at the bottom of the tower has decreased. I would like to ask whether the feed rate remains constant (in that case, the yield of the product at the bottom of the tower would also decrease) Or has the feed rate also decreased by 10%, with only the current bottom product yield decreasing? ? 3. Are you sure the concentration of component B in the feed is stable? Is 0.3% also stable? Sometimes, fluctuations in the quality of such raw materials have a significant impact on the final concentration.
First of all, none of the operational parameters have changed； Secondly, since the raw materials are natural, the isotope concentration of the feed material should not change significantly ； Finally, due to the complexity of isotope precision distillation, changing a parameter often takes a month or even several months before any effects become apparent. I am currently involved in production, not conducting scientific research experiments. We can take our time with scientific research experiments; it’s fine to work on them for several years. Those of us in production must ensure the output and quality of products; that’s the key to the issue.
Why does it often take a month or even several months for a change in a procedure to show its effects? Is it a separation problem or an analysis problem? ? I have no experience with isotope distillation separation, nor am I aware of its complexity. Could you tell me more about it? Isn’t the basis of isotope distillation separation still relative volatility?
The relative volatility for isotope separation is generally close to 1; in my case it’s around 1.0009, so several thousand theoretical plates are required
Are thousands of theoretical plates required? It seems separation is quite troublesome! There’s no need to wait several months to see the results, right? Is your data usage also very low? ? If the traffic volume is high, it’s difficult to determine, after a few months, whether the resulting fluctuations are due to variations in the raw materials or to adjustments made
As far as I know, isotope separation is very difficult. It is recommended to use multi-tower cooperation, with each tower increasing the concentration only partially, in order to gradually achieve the desired separation precision. This makes it easy to implement in the laboratory. Industrial installations are easy to control.
Why does this device require such a high number of theoretical plates? The size of the reaction device also plays a role
What filler is being used? Is the packing corroded? Broken? Is it partially blocked? Are all the instruments and meters accurate? Are the workers operating normally? Is there some abnormal phenomenon that the workers haven’t noticed? Or they are aware of it, but afraid of being punished and dare not speak up. Is it due to the weather? It’s winter now and the temperatures are low. If nothing else works, work in the production workshop for half a year to see if any problems can be identified
This post was last edited by yuchenchf on 2014-2-5 at 11:11. Is the original poster in the water industry? I hope there will be a chance to exchange ideas