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A sensitive method was developed and experimentally validated for the in-line analysis and quantification of gaseous feed and product streams of separation processes under research and development based on column chromatography. The analysis uses a specific mass spectrometry method coupled to engineering processes, such as Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) and Simulated Moving Bed (SMB), which are examples of popular continuous separation technologies that can be used in applications such as natural gas and biogas purifications or carbon dioxide sequestration. These processes employ column adsorption equilibria on adsorbent materials, thus requiring real-time gas stream composition quantification. For this assay, an internal standard is assumed and a single-point calibration is used in a simple mixture-specific algorithm. The accuracy of the method was found to be between 0.01% and 0.25% (-mol) for mixtures of CO2, CH4, and N2, tested as case-studies. This makes the method feasible for streams with quality control levels that can be used as a standard monitoring and analyzing procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an experiment on ultrafiltration (UF) process which designed to illustrate its practical and theoretical principles. The UF processes are used in commercial sector due to their importance such as the concentration and fractionation of proteins, preconcentration of milk before making cheese and clarification of wine and fruit juices. The authors noted that the experiment explains membrane separation fundamentals and introduces students to the experimental determination of ultrafiltration parameters. They concluded that the negative effect of polarization is more pronounced at higher feed bulk concentrations.