Synthesis of reactive and extractive distillation units using distillation line diagrams

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the synthesis of reactive and extractive distillation units, using distillation line diagrams. It gives detailed description of EXTRACTIVE DISTILLATION and REACTIVE DISTILLATION. For extractive distillation, solvents need to be chosen just on the basis of selectivity to emphasize the cost of the extraction column, whereas the cost in the solvent recovery system is sometimes significant and may control the cost of the global process. The in-situ removal of product form the reaction zone causes equilibrium-limited reactions to be shifted forward, thus allowing high conversion. Moreover, the chemical reaction can change the topology of the nonreactive residue curve maps (RCM). For extractive and reactive distillation, accurate analysis of the non-reactive RCM is needed. Moreover, to visualize the solution, transformed molar composition (Ung and Doherty) provides information on the feasibility and column sequencing. This is done by determining the stables and unstable nodes, detecting any reactive azeotrope and reactive distillation boundaries and targeting them as potential bottoms and distillate products respectively.