Ethylene Oxide Reactor Research Articles

Modelling an Industrial Ethylene Oxide Reactor

An industrial catalytic tubular reactor used to make ethylene oxide is described by a system of nonlinear partial differential equations. The dimensionless model is integrated by the method of lines. Excellent agreement between the plant and the model predicted data has been obtained. Simulations show that increases in the temperature of the reactor are accompanied by higher rates of reaction, which is desirable, and increased production of CO2, which is undesirable. This difficult to control industrial reactor case study can be used to test control theories.

OSHA fines Union Carbide $2.8 million

Pending appeal, Union Carbide has been fined $2.8 million by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration for willful violations related to the explosion and fire that destroyed part of its ethylene oxide plant Seadrift, Tex., last March. The accident, which dealt a blow to Carbide's vigorous post-Bhopal efforts for an accident-free record its plants around the world, killed one person and injured 32. It also knocked out much of the company's ethylene oxide capacity, resulting a drop of about $50 million earnings this year. OSHA Administrator Gerard F. Scannell says Carbide operated the plant in a manner which created the potential for catastrophic explosion. Not only was there an explosion of the ethylene oxide reactor, but the blast also sent flying metal shrapnel that punctured methane lines nearby. OSHA's investigation, says Scannell, showed that several exits from the area were locked, and some employees had to climb over a fence to ...

Ethylene oxide reactor: Safety according to operability analysis

AbstractA detailed account is given of operability analysis of the cooling system of an ethylene oxide reactor (30,000 t/yr) as a typical example of a particularly critical process.Although this method is purely qualitative, it proved very effective in revealing the more critical parts of the plant at the design stage, with the result that suitable modifications were introduced.This assertion is supported by the results of a fault tree analysis, which is also described with reference to a detailed example of a reactor feed and control circuit. It was found that operability analysis is of more general and ready applicability than fault tree analysis, since it does not require failure rate data.

Process safety analysis for better reactor cooling system design in the ethylene oxide reactor

AbstractThe operating data for a plant producing 30,000 t/yr of ethylene oxide (EO) are presented, along with a detailed “process safety analysis” of the system used for reaction heat removal. Process safety analysis is a key point in the design procedure for typically critical plants, such as a E.O. reactor.The paper is primarily directed to identification of the coolant fluid most suitable for the requirements of the process in terms of safety and economy. The evaporating fluid cooling system adopted is examined analytically under both normal and emergency situations with reference to three fluids: dowtherm J, n‐octane and n‐nonane. Nonane was chosen as the coolant because it minimised the temperature gradient along the vertical axis of the reactor (<4°C on the shell side), circulation rate and evaporation pressure.

Safe design of cooled tubular reactors for exothermic, multiple reactions; parallel reactions—II: The design and operation of an ethylene oxide reactor

In part I a model and criteria have been developed for the safe design and operation of cooled tubular reactors for multiple reactions of the parallel type. In this Part II the model is extended to parallel reactions with an arbitrary stoichiometry. The results are applied to the industrial process of the ethylene oxidation with pure oxygen. It is shown that the criteria derived in part I lead to useful guidelines for the design and operation of an ethylene oxide reactor.