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Koch - Liquid Extraction Equipment
Koch Modular Process Systems, LLC. Extraction Technology Group specializes in the design and supply of liquid-liquid extraction equipment engineered to fulfill the chemical, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, biotech and flavor & fragrance industries’ increasingly challenging purification requirements. Our extractor design expertise includes SCHEIBEL® columns, KARR® columns, rotating disc contactor (RDC) columns, pulsed columns, packed (SMVP) columns and sieve tray columns.
At Koch Modular, we don’t just sell extraction equipment; we supply solutions to your difficult separation applications. Koch Modular also provides replacements parts, repair services and troubleshooting assistance for all types of extraction columns. A qualified technician or engineer can be provided on-site for both mechanical and process related support.
Liquid-liquid extraction is a powerful separation technique that falls right behind distillation in the hierarchy of separation methods (see figure on the right).
Reasons to use liquid-liquid extraction:- Separation not feasible by distillation
- Break azeotropes
- Energy requirements of distillation are prohibitive
- A complex distillation sequence is required
- The material is heat sensitive
- The material is non-volatile
The general rule: If a separation can be made economically by distillation, there is no reason to consider extraction. However, in situations where distillation is not feasible for reasons such as a complex process sequence, high investment or operating costs, heat sensitive materials, or low volatility, extraction is often the best technology to use.
Extraction frequently involves additional steps to recover and recycle the solvent. A typical extraction process is shown below. About 3% of the operating cost is in the extractor, with the remaining 97% in solvent recovery. Also, the majority of the capital cost is in the equipment downstream of the extraction column. Therefore, it is extremely important to consider the solvent recovery aspects early in the project since they play such an important role in overall process economics.
In addition to the extractor, an extremely important aspect of any extraction application is the design of the system to recover and recycle the solvent, and further purification of extracted products. In most cases, these additional steps are accomplished by means of distillation, and when necessary, are also studied during the pilot tests.
At Koch Modular, we often supply the extraction and distillation components as a complete modular system. Typical examples are illustrated on this page.
Our team of experienced engineers is available to work together with you on your next liquid-liquid extraction application, from conceptualization through start-up.
Most projects involve a pilot test to provide the basis for commercial plant design. Unlike distillation, which can often be designed by simulations alone, liquid-liquid extraction usually has many unknown factors such as stage efficiency, rates of diffusion, flood point, emulsion formation, interface behavior, entrainment tendency and capacity data. Small trace impurities can have a significant impact on all of the above. For this reason, it is preferred to use only actual plant feed and solvent materials are best used for these tests.
Before pilot testing begins bench scale tests are performed to generate the liquid-liquid equilibrium data. Besides supplying the equilibrium data, these tests can reveal information on emulsions or entrainment that help guide extractor selection.