The separation of 2-adamantanone from 1-adamantanol and 2-adamantanol by simulated moving bed (SMB) chromatography is reported. Among several combinations of adsorbents and solvents, NaY-type zeolite and 2-methyl-2-butanol were selected as the optimal combination of stationary and mobile phases by batch experiments. SMB operation conditions were determined by using the free software 'Wsmb' for SMB simulation based on experimentally determined thermodynamic and kinetic model parameters. The simulation results were validated under the optimized experimental conditions, and in the experiment 2-adamantanone was recovered in 99.6% purity and 86.6% yield, showing good agreement with the simulation results. In addition, the variable cost of the SMB process was optimized on a commercial scale with the simulation software. The results show that the SMB process was economically viable under the assumptions of this study.