Separation of α-Tocopherol with a Two-Feed Simulated Moving Bed

摘要

A two-feed simulated moving bed（SMB） was proposed to utilize the stationary phase more effectively.Zone I is disconnected with zone Ⅱ and zone Ⅲ is disconnected with zone IV.Two feeds are added to zones I and Ⅲ,while two desorbents are added to zones Ⅱ and IV separately.The investigation on the movement of concentra-tion bands indicated that the tail of the strong retained solute and the front of the weak retained solute were eluted from zones I and Ⅲ orderly,so the streams from zones I and Ⅲ could be cut into different fractions to give the products with high purity.The two-feed SMB was used to separate α-tocopherol from its homologue mixture suc-cessfully,and could double the productivity if both feeds were identical to the feed in the conventional four-zone SMB.The solvent consumption could be reduced by reusing the middle fraction without solutes.