REACTIVE DIVIDING-WALL COLUMNS—HOW TO GET MORE WITH LESS RESOURCES?

Abstract

This work presents a novel integrated reactive-separation design based on a dividing-wall column (DWC) applied to an industrial case study within AkzoNobel Chemicals. To the best of our knowledge this is one of the first reported industrial applications of a reactive DWC. Due to changing market conditions, one of the by-products in a plant became more economically attractive than the main product. However, the design of the existing plant does not allow an increase of the by-product production rate at the cost of the main product. To solve this problem we developed a novel integrated design that combines reaction and separation into a feasible reactive DWC that allows 35% savings in capital and 15% savings in energy costs. This article describes the novel reactive DWC design, presents the rigorous simulation results, and makes a comparison with the base case alternative.

Keywords:

• Energy savings
• Overcoming equilibrium
• Reactive distillation
• Dividing-wall column