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Environmental

Efforts are made in all directions to reduce humanity's negative impact on the environment by consuming fewer of the planet's resources, re-using the resources already extracted, using more energy- and material-efficient production techniques, releasing less waste back into nature, and making better efforts to undo damage and remediate pollution.

One challenge in managing liquid waste is aging infrastructure, which creates a growing need for innovative solutions to treat polluted liquids and manage waste effectively.

At SpinChem, we prioritize environmental issues and strive to contribute. The rotating bed reactor (RBR) can help in several ways, including:

  • Using sustainable approaches like biocatalysis for production
  • Enhancing energy and material efficiency
  • Minimizing resource consumption and waste production
  • Reusing and recycling resources
  • Transitioning away from fossil fuels and decarbonizing the economy

Managing Large Volumes of Waste More Effectively

Large volumes of liquid waste often accumulate at industrial sites. Treating these waste streams adequately can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, often compounding the problem over time.

RBR is a tool for treating large volumes of liquids, either to produce valuable batches of a product or to treat problematic liquid waste. In the latter case, contamination is concentrated into a smaller volume of solid waste, often reducing the mass and volume of the waste by thousands of times.

At SpinChem, we design treatment systems for individual cases and requirements. We can build and test complete systems and predict performance using computational models and in-house pilot tests.

As an example, legacy waste in the nuclear industry, unresolved for decades, has been cleared for release in weeks after implementing an RBR.

Using RBRs can be a powerful tool in treating liquid waste, providing an efficient and effective solution to a major industrial problem.

Possible Areas Where RBR Technology Can Be Used

  • Water Treatment: Remediation of PFAS-contaminated water.
  • Nuclear Waste Management: Effective treatment solutions for nuclear waste.
  • Biochar Production: Utilizing RBR technology in biochar development.
  • Drinking Water Remediation: Tackling serious pollutants like arsenic in drinking water.
  • Textile Industry: Treating dye-polluted water and recycling process water.
  • Waste Upcycling: Chemical, biochemical, mechanical, and thermal transformations of waste products.
  • Pharmaceutical Industry: Scavenging and re-using transition metals, and recovering APIs and precursors.

Check out our application blog on how rotating bed reactors can revolutionize liquid waste treatment! Discover how this technology can handle very large volumes of liquids while reducing the mass and volume of waste by thousands of times.

Activated carbon decolorization, fast and without filtration

Activated carbon is a common choice for removing impurities or capturing compounds from a product batch. However, the carbon may itself foul the product and be difficult to separate. The rotating bed reactor offers a clean way to deploy activated carbon that removes the need for time-consuming filtration and extends the lifetime of the solid phase.  

Flexible deployment with the plug-in rotating bed reactor

The rotating bed reactor (RBR) is a combined tool for chemical transformations and liquid transfer operations, reducing or eliminating the need for external pumps. Filled with a catalyst or adsorbent, and rotated by a motor, the RBR brings the liquid to be processed in contact with the solid-phase at high flow rates. Due to the high flow rate generated, the RBR can not only treat the liquid in the reaction vessel, but also transfer it into the vessel for processing.

Automatic processes for efficient production

Automation of large-scale processes is often a requirement for economically viable chemical processes. The benefits of scale are best harvested at high throughputs and 24/7 operation. This leads to the demand for process automation, and the elimination of hands-on work.

Dramatically improved deionization with a rotating bed reactor

Removing ions from liquids is common in industry and society. Ions are remediated in applications ranging from the production of pharmaceuticals to the treatment of communal waste streams. Likewise, the nuclear energy sector deals with the removal of ionic radioactive substances from water on a daily basis.

Decolourization more efficient in rotating bed reactor than in fixed bed reactor

A fixed bed reactor (FBR), also known as a packed bed reactor or column, is a traditional technology for processes such as adsorption or heterogeneous catalysis. Achieving the required level of purification or conversion means running the liquid through the reactor at a sufficiently low flow rate, and the throughput of a fixed bed reactor is therefore often limited.

Rotating bed reactor faster than stirred tank reactor for a mass transfer limited reaction

Mass transfer limited reactions can create problems for applications like the synthesis of chemical products or the manufacture of active pharmaceutical ingredients. Poor yields, high side-product formation or impractically long reactions are potential issues. Efficient reactor design can greatly improve the mass transfer and remove the limitation to a minimum.

Decolourization in an IBC tank using the ProRBR IBC add-on

Adsorption of methylene blue (3 g, 5 mg/L) onto Purolite® NRW1160 (4.2 L) placed in a SpinChem® S5 RBR operated at 147 rpm. The SpinChem® S5 RBR was placed within a 600 L IBC tank, using the ProRBR IBC add-on, where the tank was filled with water. The data was acquired using a UV-VIS spectrophotometer.  

Decolourization using 79 L of activated carbon in a 7000 L vessel

A large scale decolourization experiment using the SpinChem® rotating bed reactor (RBR) S100, packed with 79 L of activated carbon. The vessel contained 7000 L of water with added methylene blue dye. In under 40 minutes, 95% of the initial concentration of methylene blue was removed from the water, which shows that the RBR S100 can achieve fast reaction times in large scale processes.

Deionizing 7000 L of tap water using the SpinChem® RBR S100

The SpinChem® rotating bed reactor (RBR) S100, with a solid phase capacity of 100 L, was used to deionize 7000 L of tap water. The RBR S100 was operating at 160 rpm and filled with 36.5 L of mixed bed ion exchange resin. The results show that the RBR S100 can efficiently process large liquid volumes. As shown by the successful deionization, the performance of the RBR remains high even when it is partially filled, which proves the extreme robustness of the RBR technology.

In-tank deployment of large scale rotating bed reactor

How can this process be scaled up? This is perhaps the most important question to consider when developing a chemical process. If it cannot be done on large scale, all the time and resources invested in laboratory work will be unrewarded. Pumping liquids through massive columns or separating solids from a large batch can be unsurmountable challenges that bring a halt to a new project before it has even left the starting blocks.

Mass transfer revolutionized

The SpinChem rotating bed reactor (RBR) can eliminate poor mass transfer in heterogeneous reactions during chemical syntheses and biotransformations, preserve catalyst activity, and facilitate recycling of solid phases. This brochure presents our technology and its applications.

Pesticide remediation in extracts and oils

Pesticide residue can ruin a batch of a botanical extract, creating large problems for producers. Curated adsorbents, specifically chosen for your situation, can be used to remediate the pesticides. With a rotating bed reactor, you are equipped to respond to contaminants showing up on your test results.

Exploring the effectiveness of different types of activated carbon

Contaminations in liquids can often be removed using an adsorbent, such as granular activated carbon (GAC). The best choice of adsorbent is unique for each contaminant, and the effectiveness depends on many parameters. Failing to investigate these can lead to unnecessarily high material costs and long processing times.

Simple scale-up using flexible reactors

Research and development quickly takes new directions, and the requirements on a laboratory may vary with every new project. Limiting yourself to equipment with a narrow scope of conditions and applications may become expensive, since new equipment must be acquired for anything out of scope. With budgets quickly consumed by other projects, the need for new equipment may mean significant delays and a reduced capability to take on emerging opportunities.

How the loading of solids influences reaction speed

Sometimes you don’t want to pack the entire rotating bed reactor full with your solid-phase material. Fully loading might simply be wasteful, or you may want to experiment with your reaction conditions. But how does the amount of solids in the rotating bed reactor influence the reaction performance? Can you use only 10% of the full capacity?