The production of polymers such as polyethylene requires a high purity feedstock of various components, including monomers and co-monomers. In order to offset some of the costs and maximize production, it can be useful to reclaim and/or recycle some feedstock components from an effluent stream resulting from the polymerization reaction. To accomplish this, the reclaimed effluent streams have conventionally either been routed through a purification process or redirected through other redundant processing steps.
Conventional attempts to industrially produce high purity feedstock components has required the operation of numerous distillation columns, compressors (e.g., to achieve the high pressures needed in such conventional processes), refrigeration units (e.g., to achieve cryogenic temperatures) and various other equipment. As such, the equipment and energy costs associated with feedstock purification represent a significant proportion of the total cost for the production of such polymers. Further, the infrastructure required for producing, maintaining, and recycling high purity feedstock represents a significant portion of the associated cost.
Further, such conventional attempts to recover feedstock components have not enabled sufficient control parameters to prevent and/or control deleterious plant conditions. The drawbacks of these designs can lead to process delays, increased costs, and/or other inefficiencies. As such, an improved separation system for polymerization reaction effluent streams is needed.