1,4-Dioxane is a byproduct which is formed during the production process of SLES. Being dioxane a suspected human carcinogen, in most of the countries is required, or at least encouraged, to reduce its concentration in detergents to very low levels. IIT DeDiox system allows to reduce 1,4-dioxane content down to 10% of the initial concentration, in order to meet the most stringent requirements about dioxane concentration in SLES.
IIT DeDiox systems remove dioxane by evaporating water from hot SLES paste. The paste can be heated either by live steam injection or by recovering the heat generated by the neutralization reaction with an heat exchanger. The Dioxane rich vapors coming from the flash tank are then condensed and recovered in a vacuum unit. Two flash tanks can be used in series. The DeDiox system can be added to a sulphonation plant either as a standalone unit or alternatively integrated with the neutralization unit (whether already existing or newly designed).
