Title: Structural optimisation and analysis of internally heat integrated reactive distillation column

Authors: Shoushi Bo; Jian Wang; Lanyi Sun; Fei Bai; Kang He

Addresses: State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, No. 66, Changjiang West Road, Qingdao, Shandong 266580, China ' State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, No. 66, Changjiang West Road, Qingdao, Shandong 266580, China ' State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, No. 66, Changjiang West Road, Qingdao, Shandong 266580, China ' State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, No. 66, Changjiang West Road, Qingdao, Shandong 266580, China ' State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, No. 66, Changjiang West Road, Qingdao, Shandong 266580, China

Abstract: In this contribution, the model for hydrolysis of methyl acetate (MeAc) occurring in an internally heat integrated reactive distillation column (R-HIDiC) was built by using Aspen Plus software. And several configurations of R-HIDiC were proposed. The effects of the configuration on the energy saving were investigated on the premise of ensuring the purity of products and minimum approach temperature. The results reveal that configuration has significant influence on the performance of R-HIDiC for the hydrolysis reaction of MeAc and the optimal structure is determined. Sensitivity analysis has also been conducted to tune the design and operating variables of R-HIDiC.

Keywords: internally heat integrated reactive distillation columns; R-HIDiC; distillation column configuration; methyl acetate; MeAc; simulation; hydrolysis; structural optimisation; energy saving; energy consumption.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSPM.2015.072516

International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling, 2015 Vol.10 No.4, pp.307 - 314

Received: 31 Oct 2013
Accepted: 06 Jan 2015
Published online: 16 Oct 2015 *

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