Simulation of cyclohexane production using free software DWSIM

Abstract

Cyclohexane is mainly used as a precursor to cyclohexanol and cyclohexanone. Caprolactam and adipic acid are obtained from them, which are used to produce nylon-6 and nylon-66. Cyclohexane is a volatile, colorless, flammable, non-corrosive, non-polar liquid whose most notable physical property is its insolubility in water and the azeotropes it forms with a variety of chemical products. The most common method of obtaining cyclohexane is the hydrogenation of benzene. The production of cyclohexane in the current market is closely linked to the demand for such a product, as well as the importance of the raw material from which it is obtained, specifically benzene. In the present work, the design of a cyclohexane production plant from the hydrogenation of benzene is presented. For the simulation and modeling of the plant, the DWSIM tool has been used. The starting data was taken from the Aspen Plus Costing manual of 1988, with this simulation the results obtained from the free software DWSIM and the commercial software ASPEN Plus were compared.