Patent ID: 8884092

Claim:
A process for determining a pump-around profile of a simulated moving bed system having a plurality of adsorbent sub-beds in fluid communication with each other and with a rotary valve for separating one or more preferentially adsorbed components from a feed stream comprising the preferentially adsorbed component and one or more other non-preferentially adsorbed components, wherein the adsorbent sub-beds and the rotary valve are disposed in a hot box, the process comprising the steps of: rotating the rotary valve to a first valve position to direct the feed stream to a first adsorbent sub-bed of the plurality of adsorbent sub-beds; irradiating an intermediate stream between two of the adsorbent sub-beds in direct fluid communication with each other with laser light that is directed from a probe of a Raman system positioned for inline sampling of the intermediate stream; collecting scattered light from the irradiated intermediate stream with the probe; generating a spectrum of the scattered light with the Raman system to assess concentrations of the preferentially adsorbed component and one or more other components in the intermediate stream; holding the probe such that at least a tip portion of the probe is positioned in the hot box in-situ with the intermediate stream; operating the hot box at a temperature of from about 200 to about 235° C.; and, exposing the tip portion of the probe to the temperature in the hot box.