Project Background
To purify the crude LUV dye at Kodak, a toll manufacturer is contracted to operate a wiped-film evaporator (WFE) for the separation of dihexylamine and quat-propylamine from the crude LUV dye. Prior to the start of the project, the cost associated with purifying a kilogram of crude dye was $500/kg. At Kodak, 5 to 7 kg of crude LUV dye were purified annually, making the cost of the process approximately $2,500-3,500 per year. Also, purification of the crude dye via WFE netted a percent yield of 70% pure LUV dye recovered. With this in mind, the team was tasked with creating a lab-scale purification process that could:
- Produce purified LUV dye with the impurities being below the upper specification limits (USL) set by Kodak
- Obtain percent yields that are equal to or greater than the percent yield associated with the WFE purification process
- Create a process that is cheap, easily operated, and scalable from the lab prototypes to a process that can purify 2 kg/day in-house
| Analytical Method | Impurity | USL | Measured | Boiling Point (°C) |
| UV-Vis Spectroscopy | Quat-proplymine | 0.1% W/W% | 3.4 wt% | >400.6 |
| GC with Flame-Ionization Detector (GC-FID) | Dihexylamine | 1.0 area% 0.5 area% | 0.4 area% 0.7 area% | 192-195 |
Stakeholder Impact
Eastman Kodak Company, both the project sponsor and main stakeholder, was greatly involved with the team throughout the semester. When constructing the lab-scale process, Kodak impacted and assisted the team in the following ways:
- Provided materials (free of charge!) for the preliminary prototypes
- Provided feedback and design inputs on the team’s purification approach during weekly team meetings
- Performed analytical testing for the determination of impurities in the purified LUV dye samples