Simulation Study On The Application Of Reactive Distillation To Internally Heat Integrated Distillation Columns And Different Pressure Thermally Coupled Distillation Columns

Distillation is the primary separation process used in the chemical processing. While this unit operation has many advantages, one drawback is its significant energy requirement. Reactive distillation (RD) and internally heat integrated distillation columns (HIDiC) is two kinds of important application of process intensification and integration technology, and the combination of RD and HIDiC form a new configuration, called internally heat integrated reactive distillation(RD-HIDiC). Similarly, the combination of RD and DPT(different pressure thermally coupled distillation columns) is called different pressure thermally coupled reactive distillation columns(DPT-RD). The RD-HIDiC and DPT-RD are the two complex technology, integrating the merits of RD and HIDiC or DPT, which simultaneously carry on reaction and separation, and thus further improve the reactive conversion and selectivity, reduce the energy consumption. Therefore , to accelerate development and industrial application of the two technology, it will have the important political significance and economic significance on promoting the pace of development of petroleum and chemical industry,and building a resource-conserving society.In this thesis, taking the propylene propane separation system as an example, one kind of HIDiC model are established using Aspen Puls software, and degrees of freedom of the new system are analyzed. The reason of higher thermodynamic efficiency of HIDiC than the conventional distillation process(CD) is elaborated by analyzing the results between HIDiC and CD.In this thesis, taking the esterification reaction of methyl acetate(MeAc) as an example, two kinds of computation models regarding RD-HIDiC and DPT-RD, are established using Aspen Puls software. The reason of higher thermodynamic efficiency of RD-HIDiC and DPT-RD than the conventional reactive distillation process is elaborated by analyzing the results between RD and RD-HIDiC or DPT-RD. The effects of changing the pressure ratio, feed ratio of MeOH to HAc, reflux ratio, the feed stages of HAc, MeOH and H2SO₄, the heat transfer between stages, the feed temperatures and reactive zone height are analyzed, and then the optimized value of every parameter has been determined, which provides the initial values for the further optimization of RD-HIDiC and DPT-RD.Taking the foundation of preliminary optimization results, the two systems are analysised and completed based on the optimization results of both RD-HIDiC and DPT-RD. The results show that not only reductions in energy consumption and CO2 emissions but also higher thermodynamic efficiency can be obtained for both RD-HIDiC and DPT-RD.