MUMBAI, India, March 13 -- Intellectual Property India has published a patent application (202641024428 A) filed by Sangireddy Manasa; Mr. Muhammad Amrullah; Dr. Baburao Gaddala; Dr. Srinivasa Reddy Bireddy; Haritha Potluri; Dr. S. Surya; Dr. Jagdish Udyasing Chavan; and Dr. Sudhakar Ramchandra Ujgare, Hyderabad, Telangana, on March 2, for 'process for producing high-purity chemicals using advanced distillation techniques.'
Inventor(s) include Sangireddy Manasa; Mr. Muhammad Amrullah; Dr. Baburao Gaddala; Dr. Srinivasa Reddy Bireddy; Haritha Potluri; Dr. S. Surya; Dr. Jagdish Udyasing Chavan; and Dr. Sudhakar Ramchandra Ujgare.
The application for the patent was published on March 13, under issue no. 11/2026.
According to the abstract released by the Intellectual Property India: "The present invention discloses an integrated, multi-stage advanced distillation process for the production of high-purity chemicals having a purity of at least 99.5% (w/w). The process addresses the well-recognized limitations of conventional distillation, namely high energy consumption, inability to resolve azeotropic systems, thermal degradation of sensitive compounds, and poor scalability of batch operations, through the synergistic integration of four complementary advanced separation technologies. In the first stage, a crude chemical feed is subjected to reactive distillation in a column equipped with a solid acid catalyst, wherein simultaneous exothermic chemical reaction and vapor-liquid separation occur. This stage converts impurity-forming precursors in situ, substantially reducing the impurity load passed to downstream stages. In the second stage, the enriched overhead product from the reactive distillation column is fed to a thermally integrated dividing wall column (DWC), which separates the multicomponent mixture into three product streams - overhead lights, a high-purity side-draw, and a bottoms heavies fraction - within a single distillation vessel. The DWC configuration achieves thermodynamic efficiency through internal heat integration, reducing reboiler energy duty by 30 to 40% versus a conventional two-column direct sequence. In the third stage, the DWC side-draw product, which may contain an azeotrope-forming impurity, is subjected to extractive distillation using a carefully selected high-boiling selective entrainer. The entrainer selectively alters the relative volatility of the target chemical and the azeotrope-forming impurity, enabling their complete separation. The entrainer is quantitatively recovered ( 99.5%) in a dedicated recovery column and recycled, with residual entrainer carry-over in the product stream maintained below 10 ppm. In the fourth and final stage, the product stream from extractive distillation undergoes membrane-assisted vapor permeation through hydrophilic polyvinyl alcohol/zeolite NaA composite membranes. These membranes selectively permeate water vapor at operating conditions of 50-70 C and 100-300 mbar permeate-side pressure, reducing the moisture content of the product to below 50 ppm without thermal stress on the purified compound. The permeate stream is condensed and recycled. The entire process operates in continuous mode under closed-loop automated control. Inline analytical monitors (gas chromatograph or near-infrared spectrometer) provide real-time product purity data to a distributed control system, which dynamically adjusts reflux ratios, reboiler duties, entrainer flow rates, and membrane operating conditions to maintain product purity at or above 99.5% (w/w). The overall energy consumption of the integrated process is less than 2.0 GJ per tonne of product, representing an approximately 35% energy saving over conventional multi-column distillation trains. The process is applicable to a broad class of organic chemicals including alcohols, esters, ketones, ethers, organic acids, and heterocyclic compounds, and is particularly suited for pharmaceutical-grade, food-grade, and specialty chemical manufacturing applications requiring consistent product quality under cGMP conditions."
Disclaimer: Curated by HT Syndication.
