Simulation and Process Integration of Clean Acetone Plant

Scientific Journal of Applied Sciences of Sabratha University

This study focuses on determining the feasibility of obtaining maximum mole percentage of acetone (99 mole%) in the distillate stream from a 3 mole% acetone waste stream using batch distillation. The device which is used in this work has eight trays that will act as the stages of the batch distillation. The effects of varying reflux ratio and heat load (power) on acetone concentration were studied. Moreover, the operating conditions for the bath distillation column such as flooding and weeping with the extreme limits of operation were considered. The temperatures were also be recorded at each tray. The McCabe-Thiele method was used to determine the theoretical number of trays and compared with actual trays (column efficiency). For a chemical analysis of acetone/water compositions a refractometer was used for a chemical analysis, known acetone/water concentrations were analysed and used to construct a calibration curve. The results obtained showed that, the acetone concentration incr...

Ethyl acetate (EtAc) is mainly used as solvent in paints, adhesives and coatings, eliminating the use of aromatic compounds. Reactive distillation is a type of process intensification in which the separation and reaction is combined in one vessel. In this work, reactive distillation (RD) process for EtAc was implemented using process simulator Aspen HYSYS by applying the data obtained from the bibliography. A sensitive analysis was performed to determine the effects of key design and operating variables on column performance and, subsequently, an optimal column configuration was obtained. Objectives a) To simulate the reactive distillation of esterification of acetic acid and ethanol using the Aspen HYSYS process simulator. b) To perform the sensitive analysis to determine the effects of operating variables on column performance (kinetic model, reflux ratio, molar feed ratio, number of stages, etc.) c) To obtain the optimum column configuration. Conversion EtOH (%) Purity EtAc (%)

Computer Aided Chemical Engineering, 2014

This study presents an analysis for acetone, butanol and ethanol production process. Firstly, a systematic methodology for model-based simulation is proposed in order to perform an appropriate modelling task in the analysis of production processes. The implementation of the systematic methodology allowed the evaluation of four ABE production processes with different operating scenarios such as, continuous and continuous with recycle in the enzymatic hydrolysis and ABE fermentation, relying on a benchmarking criterion (kg-butanol/kg-dry-biomass). The results show that recycle in both sections improve butanol production, but especially when this was present in the enzymatic hydrolysis section. The highest yield was found in the configuration with continuous and recycle mode for enzymatic hydrolysis and ABE fermentation.

Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 2015

We show how thermodynamic insight can be used to improve the design of a homogeneous extractive distillation process, and we define an extractive efficiency indicator to compare the optimality of different designs. The case study is related to the separation of the acetone−methanol minimum boiling azeotrope with water. The process flow sheet includes both the extractive distillation column and the entrainer regeneration column. Insight from analysis of the ternary residue curve map and isovolatility curves shows that a lower pressure reduces the minimal amount of entrainer needed and increases the relative volatility of acetone−methanol in the extractive column. A 0.6 atm pressure is selected to enable the use of cheap cooling water in the condenser. We optimize the entrainer flow rate, adjusting both column reflux ratios and feed locations, by minimizing the total energy consumption per product unit. The total annualized cost (TAC) is calculated for all processes. Double-digit savings in energy consumption and in TAC are achieved compared to literature values. We then propose a novel efficiency indicator that describes the ability per tray of extractive section to discriminate the desired product between the top and the bottom of the extractive section. Shifting the feed trays' locations improves the efficiency of the separation, even when less entrainer is used.

Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 2009

The acetone-methanol extractive distillation using water as an entrainer was simulated on Aspen Plus software package using rigorous methods. Calculation of the vapor-liquid equilibrium for the ternary system was done by the UNIQUAC model according to the experimental results obtained in a previous work. The effects of the solvent to feed molar ratio, reflux ratio, feed stage, feed solvent stage, and solvent feed temperature were studied to obtain the best design of the extractive distillation column with minimal energy requirements. The most appropriate configuration is 52 theoretical stages. The best binary mixture and entrainer feeding stages were obtained at 48 and 22 respectively with a solvent to feed molar and reflux ratio of 2.0 and 5.0, respectively. The simulation results show the effect of the main variables on the extractive distillation process.

A waste solvent mixture of acetone-methanol in a pharmaceutical plant which is minimum-boiling azeotrope properties, it is difficult tasked to separate this liquid mixtures by conventional batch distillation. To achieve higher purity, a batch extractive distillation, combining the extraction and separation into a single stage, is widely carried out to separate this waste solvent mixture. The objective of this work is to study an approach to produce acetone with the purity of 94.0% by mole by a batch extractive distillation column. In the column operation, semi-continues mode has been proposed to improve purity of acetone. The total reflux start-up period is finished when the unit reaches its steady state and/or maximum purity. Water has been used as solvent. Dynamic optimization strategy is proposed after the total reflux start-up period is ended. The optimization problem is formulated to maximize the weight of distillate product for a given product specification, reboiler heat duty, and batch operating time. Simulation results show that 94.0% purity of the distillate product can be produced by the dynamic optimization programming with two or more time intervals. Besides, the higher time intervals results in the higher distillate product.

Heliyon, 2021

Renewable energy sources are prospective solutions for addressing future energy needs arising from the everincreasing population and dwindling petroleum reserves. Biobutanol is one of the most efficient biofuels for use as a mixture with motor vehicle fuels. Biobutanol is produced from the acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation process and is separated into the pure components via multicomponent distillation. Mathematical modelling of the continuous multicomponent distillation of ABE was carried herein out using an equilibrium-based model with the modified Hang-Wanke method in MATLAB R2020a programming language and compared with the simulation results using Aspen Plus V9. The variables of this study were the feed stage, number of trays, reflux ratio to butanol purity, butanol recovery, and energy load of the reboiler and condenser. Based on the simulation results, the operating conditions in columns 1 and 2 were recommended based on the butanol purity, recovery, and reboiler load; the recommended operating conditions for column 1 are as follows-feed stage: 4, reflux ratio: 4, number of trays: 20 trays, with a column efficiency of 55.43%. The recommended operating conditions for column 2 are as follows-feed stage: 2, reflux ratio: 0.4, number of trays: up to 10, with a column efficiency of 54.94%.

2019

Acetone and other volatile solvents are often utilized in industrial applications. Acetone is mainly used for industrial cleaning when lab material is contaminated with undesired residue. After the acetone is used to clean lab equipment, often times companies discard the solvents at a large expense. This project focuses on creating a small scale acetone distillation system to purify these contaminated solvents in order to reuse them. This paper will outline the research, design , and assembly of this system. The group assembled the contaminated acetone distillation system and provided recommendations for improvements to the system that can create a more efficient and commercialized distillation unit.

Computers & Chemical Engineering, 2015

Most of the reactive distillation (RD) simulation studies rely upon very scarce laboratory scale experimental data available in literature. In the present work, an industrial scale RD finishing column for ethyl acetate production is simulated using rate based model of Aspen Plus TM. Available activity coefficient data could not predict composition profiles of the industrial column. Therefore, a new set of NRTL model parameters is established for this system using the vapor-liquid equilibrium data available in literature. This new set of data was used in the non-equilibrium, rate based model of Aspen Plus TM. Baring the variation in concentration profile due to fluctuations caused by pseudo-steady-state behavior of industrial unit, the predicted concentration profile closely matches the plant data. The simulation results for stage efficiencies, component generation rates, and the effect of the organic reflux rate on ethanol conversion and ethyl acetate purity are also presented and discussed.

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2012

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