Study On The Separation Process Of Isopropanol-Water

The separation process of heterogeneous azeotropic distillation was studied for isopropanol-water system using cyclohexane as entrainer. At first, the process of continuous heterogeneous azeotropic distillation was studied by experimentation. The results showed that cyclohexane as entrainer was added enough at beginning and operated using cyclohexane-phase reflux, and when the theoretical plate numbers were up to 35, the production obtained high productivity, the process of continuous heterogeneous azeotropic distillation for isopropanol-water system was used to simulate and optimize by ASPEN. The advanced process of combining two columns was proposed. The optimum technological parameters and operating parameters were obtained by simulating and optimizing some main operating conditions respectively which affecting the process, such as theoretical plate numbers, feed location, feed temperature, quantity of reflux, etc. And the industrial design was carried out on the basis of optimum results. After the industrial design was used in factory, we found that the process data matched with the optimum results of software simulation. The content of IPA in product is more than 99.5 wt%, and the content of H2O is less than 500ppm. The quality of product was higher than the quality standard required and could be reused. Factory production over one year showed that, the news process possessed some major advantages, separation effect was perfect, the industrial wastewater was much lower while obtaining higher benefits, reducing the production costs sharply. The economic benefits from the process was prominent.