Downscaling and modelling of an ion-exchange chromatography column for purifying glucose solutions

Sammanfattning: To utilize sugars as a feedstock for renewable industries, the feedstock often needs to be very pure. This is due to ionic species contaminating the sugar feedstock being potent catalyst poisons in many cases. To remove ionic species from the sugar feedstock, it is dissolved and purified using packed ion-exchange columns. In this report, a lab-scale setup of a large scale ion-exchange setup was constructed. The system was then modelled using Matlab. The goal was to produce a lab-scale setup that in theory operates similarly to the large setup and develop a model that can predict the behaviour of the system. The feed sugar content was varied using glucose, the range of glucose concentrations tested were 0, 10, 30, and 50 wt% glucose. The feed linear flow velocity was also varied, the flows studied were 0.65, 1.3 and 2.6 m/h respectively. To simulate the kinetics of adsorption of ionic species to the resin, the equilibrium adsorption isotherm was measured experimentally. Both the temperature effect and the effect of different glucose concentrations in the liquid was studied. It was found that lower temperatures favoured the resin performance at higher glucose temperatures and higher glucose concentration had a negative effect on the resin performance. As the isotherm had been determined for the different glucose concentrations, experimental data of the lab-scale setup was compared to model simulations. The model shows promise in emulating the experimental setup. The experimental setup does however need more work to raise reproducibility of the setup which has been a major issue throughout.