A new approach to industrial melt crystallization of acrylic acid

The main task of the thesis was to investigate the technical feasibility of the acrylic acid separation by suspension melt crystallization at an early stage of the production process from an aqueous melt. This investigation requires the basic knowlegde of the crystal morphology and the slurry properties at various conditions. Therefore, the sub objectives of this thesis are: 1. Analysis of the acrylic acid morphology and its dependency on various process parameters, like water content and supercooling of the melt. 2. Investigation of the solid-liquid separation performance at different process conditions, like water content of the melt, supercooling, and pressure difference over the filter cake. 3. Elaboration of possible improvements on the crystallization process to extend the operation window and to increase the yield of the crystallization step. 4. Benchmark analysis of the process improvement with one of the common industrial process.