Green and Sustainable Separation and Purification Technologies

A special issue of ChemEngineering (ISSN 2305-7084).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 January 2025 | Viewed by 1971

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
College of Information Science and Technology, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
Interests: process systems engineering; advanced process control; intelligent optimization; neural networks; reinforcement learning

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Green and sustainable separation and purification technologies are an essential aspect of modern chemical engineering, environmental science, and industrial processes. These methods aim to minimize the environmental footprint while maintaining or improving the efficiency of extracting, purifying, and recycling valuable materials from various sources. They focus on reducing energy consumption and minimizing waste generation.

Green and sustainable separation and purification technologies have a wide range of definitions. A typical example is process intensification. This refers to the redesign of existing processes with technologies such as vapor recompression, heat integration, and thermal coupling, thereby reducing their size, improving resource efficiency, and minimizing waste production. Other examples, such as advanced membrane separation technologies, cryogenic distillation technologies, dividing-wall column technologies, reactive distillation technologies, and supergravity distillation technologies, are also included, as long as they contribute to the achievement of green and sustainable chemistry.

By adopting these green and sustainable separation and purification technologies, industries can significantly reduce their environmental impact and contribute to a circular economy by recovering and reusing valuable resources.

Dr. Yang Yuan
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • vapor recompression
  • heat integration
  • thermal coupling
  • process intensification
  • separation process modeling
  • separation process design
  • separation process control

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

10 pages, 1481 KiB  
Article
Innovative Technology of Continuous-Steam Distillation with Packed Column to Obtain Essential Oil-Differentiated Fractions from Mexican Lime (Citrus aurantifolia)
by Tania Pahua-Angel, Mirna Estarrón-Espinosa, Eduardo Castaño-Tostado, Edmundo Mateo Mercado-Silva, Silvia Lorena Amaya-Llano and José Daniel Padilla-de la Rosa
ChemEngineering 2024, 8(5), 88; https://doi.org/10.3390/chemengineering8050088 - 2 Sep 2024
Viewed by 334
Abstract
Continuous distillation (CD) by steam is a patented emerging technology that allows us to obtain essential-oil fractions from citrus juices. It presents benefits such as reducing steam consumption by 50%, lowering environmental impact, and, by its design, obtaining fractions enriched in terpenic and [...] Read more.
Continuous distillation (CD) by steam is a patented emerging technology that allows us to obtain essential-oil fractions from citrus juices. It presents benefits such as reducing steam consumption by 50%, lowering environmental impact, and, by its design, obtaining fractions enriched in terpenic and oxygenated compounds that can be further processed. The CD of essential oils from Mexican lime juice (Citrus aurantifolia) was studied and the results were compared with conventional steam distillation (batch) in terms of steam consumption, extraction yield, chemical composition, and quality of the essential oils. Different steam flows were used: distillation without a packed column (sc); with packed column (cc); and steam flows of 10, 15, and 20 mL/min with a reflux ratio of 0.5, 1, and 2, respectively. CD was superior in terms of composition, extraction energy savings (0.63 kg steam/kg juice with 1.39 kg steam/kg juice in the conventional), and the extraction yield recovery efficiency was >90%. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis of the extracted essential oils indicated that the use of CD with a column increases the fractionation of volatile compounds. The result of this study demonstrates that CD can be used as an alternative method to extract the essential oil from lime or any citrus fruit, obtaining differentiated fractions in aroma and composition. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green and Sustainable Separation and Purification Technologies)
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24 pages, 4637 KiB  
Article
Biogas Cleaning via Vacuum Swing Adsorption Using a Calcium Metal–Organic Framework Adsorbent: A Multiscale Simulation Study
by Madison Lasich, Victoria T. Adeleke and Kaniki Tumba
ChemEngineering 2024, 8(3), 62; https://doi.org/10.3390/chemengineering8030062 - 14 Jun 2024
Viewed by 1208
Abstract
Purifying biogas can enhance the performance of distributed smart grid systems while potentially yielding clean feedstock for downstream usage such as steam reforming. Recently, a novel anion-pillared metal–organic framework (MOF) was reported in the literature that shows good capacity to separate acetylene from [...] Read more.
Purifying biogas can enhance the performance of distributed smart grid systems while potentially yielding clean feedstock for downstream usage such as steam reforming. Recently, a novel anion-pillared metal–organic framework (MOF) was reported in the literature that shows good capacity to separate acetylene from carbon dioxide. The present study assesses the usefulness of this adsorbent for separating a typical biogas mixture (consisting of methane, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen sulphide) using a multiscale approach. This approach couples atomistic Monte Carlo simulations in the grand canonical ensemble with the batch equilibrium modelling of a pressure swing adsorption system. The metal–organic framework displays selectivity at low pressures for carbon dioxide and especially hydrogen sulphide. An analysis of adsorption isotherm models coupled with statistical distributions of surface–gas interaction energies determined that both CH4 and CO2 exhibited Langmuir-type adsorption, while H2S displayed Langmuir-type behaviour at low pressures, with increasing adsorption site heterogeneity at high pressures. Batch equilibrium modelling of a vacuum swing adsorption system to purify a CH4/CO2 feedstock demonstrated that such a system can be incorporated into a solar biogas reforming process since the target purity of 93–94 mol-% methane for incorporation into the process was readily achievable. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green and Sustainable Separation and Purification Technologies)
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