Control of reactive distillation production of high-purity isopropanol

Abstract The process characteristics and control strategy of a high-purity IPA reactive distillation column were investigated. A robust nominal operation was found by maintaining an excess of propylene feed to the column and recycling the unreacted propylene to the feed instead of the top stage. Stage temperature and propylene composition with one-to-one relationship with reboiler duty and propylene feed are selected as controlled variables for maintaining bottom purity and feed ratio in the presence of possible measurement bias respectively. High nonlinearity between selected input–output pair was reduced by using variable transformation. Dynamic simulations demonstrated that such a control scheme with nonlinear transformed variable was capable of providing much superior control performance than the one using natural variable.

[1]  Muhammad A. Al-Arfaj,et al.  Control Study of Ethyl tert-Butyl Ether Reactive Distillation , 2002 .

[2]  Muhammad A. Al-Arfaj,et al.  Comparison of Alternative Control Structures for an Ideal Two-Product Reactive Distillation Column , 2000 .

[3]  Moses O. Tadé,et al.  Two-point control of a reactive distillation column for composition and conversion , 1999 .

[4]  William L. Luyben,et al.  Design and control of an olefin metathesis reactive distillation column , 2002 .

[5]  Rajamani Krishna,et al.  Modelling reactive distillation , 2000 .

[6]  J. Álvarez-Ramírez,et al.  A robust PI control configuration for a high-purity ethylene glycol reactive distillation column , 2000 .

[7]  E. Gilles,et al.  Multiple Steady States in a Reactive Distillation Column for the Production of the Fuel Ether TAME I. Theoretical Analysis , 1998 .

[8]  Kai Sundmacher,et al.  Multiple Steady States in a Reactive Distillation Column for the Production of the Fuel Ether TAME Part II: Experimental Validation , 1998 .

[9]  I-Lung Chien.  Simple empirical nonlinear model for temperature‐based high‐purity distillation columns , 1996 .

[10]  Shih‐Haur Shen,et al.  Use of relay‐feedback test for automatic tuning of multivariable systems , 1994 .

[11]  Michael F. Doherty,et al.  Reactive distillation by design , 1992 .

[12]  Karl T. Chuang,et al.  Design of a Process for Production of Isopropyl Alcohol by Hydration of Propylene in a Catalytic Distillation Column , 2002 .

[13]  Achim Kienle,et al.  Nonlinear dynamics of reactive distillation processes for the production of fuel ethers , 1997 .

[14]  Muhammad A. Al-Arfaj,et al.  Plantwide control for TAME production using reactive distillation , 2004 .

[15]  Rajamani Krishna,et al.  Bifurcation analysis for TAME synthesis in a reactive distillation column: comparison of pseudo-homogeneous and heterogeneous reaction kinetics models , 2003 .

[16]  P. Daoutidis,et al.  Dynamics and control of an ethyl acetate reactive distillation column , 2001 .

[17]  B. Bequette.  Nonlinear control of chemical processes: a review , 1991 .

[18]  T. N. Smith,et al.  Steady-state transitions in the reactive distillation of MTBE , 1998 .

[19]  Muhammad A. Al-Arfaj,et al.  Comparative control study of ideal and methyl acetate reactive distillation , 2002 .

[20]  Muhammad A. Al-Arfaj,et al.  Control of ethylene glycol reactive distillation column , 2002 .

[21]  S. Hauan,et al.  Dynamic Evidence of the Multiplicity Mechanism in Methyl tert-Butyl Ether Reactive Distillation , 1997 .

[22]  P. Daoutidis,et al.  Nonlinear model reduction of chemical reaction systems , 2001 .

[23]  Michael F. Malone,et al.  Reactive distillation for methyl acetate production , 2003, Comput. Chem. Eng..

[24]  Robert S. Huss,et al.  Multiple steady states in reactive distillation: kinetic effects , 2002 .

[25]  P. L. Douglas,et al.  Methyl-Tert-Butyl-Ether Catalytic Distillation Column , 1998 .

[26]  Cheng-Ching Yu,et al.  Temperature Control of Heterogeneous Reactive Distillation , 2004 .

[27]  Moses O. Tadé,et al.  Adaptive Control of an ETBE Reactive Distillation Column , 2004 .

[28]  William L. Luyben,et al.  Derivation of transfer functions for highly nonlinear distillation columns , 1987 .

[29]  P. Daoutidis,et al.  Modeling, Analysis and Control of Ethylene Glycol Reactive Distillation Column , 1999 .

[30]  Moses O. Tadé,et al.  MULTIPLICITY AND PSEUDO-MULTIPLICITY IN MTBE AND ETBE REACTIVE DISTILLATION , 1998 .

[31]  †. San-Jang Wang,et al.  Control of a Reactive Distillation Column in the Kinetic Regime for the Synthesis of n-Butyl Acetate , 2003 .

[32]  D. Wong,et al.  Effect of interaction multiplicity on control system design for a MTBE reactive distillation column , 2003 .

[33]  J. Álvarez-Ramírez,et al.  On the Steady-State Multiplicities for an Ethylene Glycol Reactive Distillation Column , 1999 .