Oh DH  Kim SH  Lee KD  Ahn IS  Lee CH

Vol. 23,  No. 2, pp. 163-171, Jun.  2017
10.7464/ksct.2017.23.2.163

Adsorptive separation Simulated moving bed TNT RDX dynamic simulation

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Currently, researches on recycling and reuse of waste energetic materials have recently gained a great attention from advanced countries due to ever tightening environmental regulations. In this study, as a part of a recycling technology, the experiments and dynamic simulation of simulated moving bed (SMB) process were performed to efficiently separate TNT and RDX from their mixture, which are main components of ammunition. In order to determine the operation zone of SMB process, the retention times of TNT and RDX were measured using HPLC at different flow rates and the adsorption equilibrium of each component was obtained by using a moment method. According to the adsorption equilibrium and the triangle theory of SMB process, four operation points were determined and separation experiments were carried out by the SMB process using the solvent consisting of acetonitrile and water. Two different mixing ratios (6:4 and 1:1) of acetonitrile and water were chosen for the experiment due to the great impact of mixing ratio of the solvent on separation. The performance of SMB process was evaluated by purity, recovery, productivity and solvent consumption. Pure TNT and RDX were successfully obtained from the SMB process and the dynamic simulation for the SMB process agreed well with the experimental results. Therefore, the dynamic model could be applied for predicting the dynamic behavior of the SMB process and designing a large scale SMB process.