Chemical Process Systems Design Diseo de Procesos Qumicos

Homework - 1 (HW1) Subject 1,2,3: Flowsheets and gross economic evaluations

1.- Using the chemical engineering literature and all the information available, list the references and build an abstract to the different process manufacturing of formaldehyde.

2.- The bibliography shows different process to the acetylene manufacturing. Choose almost three of them, build the qualitative flowsheet and discuss the main differences. Discuss when a process is more desirable than the others. What are the main design problem that would requires additional information? What suppositions are useful to solve the lack of information?

3.- Vinyl chloride production Vinyl chloride is one of the largest chemical commodity in the world. To investigate the construction of a conceptual flowsheet for the production process of vinyl chloride, please consider the following tasks. 3.1.- What is the state of the art vinyl chloride process that you found in the literature? Provide a reasonably flowsheet with a short description of the process. What are the valid reactions, feedstocks and byproducts? 3.2.- Using the market prices from the ICIS Chemical Business Americas (Chemical Market Reporter), calculate the gross profit for a plant that produces 50.000 kg/h of vinyl chloride. 3.3.- Discuss the flowsheet in part 1 by considering the following questions: 3.3.1.- What changes can be made in the separation sequence in your process? Discuss whether these have advantages or disadvantages for the process. 3.3.2.- Present an alternative flowsheet of the process if only HCl feedstock were available and chlorine was unavailable 3.3.3.- Present an alternative flowsheet of the process if HCl has a high price and should be recovered as a product .

4.- Ethylbenzene manufacturing. Problem 1.3-5 (Douglas, 1988) An energy integrated flowsheet for the production of ethylbenzene is given in Figure. The primary reactions are: Etylene + Benzene Ethylbenzene Etylene + Ethylbenzene Diethylbenzene Etylene + Diethylbenzene Triethylbenzene The reaction is run with an excess of benzene and almost complete conversion of the ethylene to try to minimize the formation of di- and triethylbenzene, and its takes place at T= 820 F and P= 300 psig over a catalyst. Two reactors are required (one on stream and the other being regenerated because of coke formation). There is 0.94 % of ethane in the ethylene feed and 0.28 % water in the benzene feed. Develop the hierarchy of flowsheets for this process.

5.- Benzoic acid production. Problem 1.3-7 (Douglas, 1988) A flowsheet for benzoic acid production is show in Figure (from SNIA VISCOSA Process, Hydrocarbon Process, 48,11, 156, Nov 1964) base don toluene oxidation using air with the primary reaction: Toluene + 1,5 O2 Benzoic Acid + H2O 160 C, 10 atm

However, reversible by-products (benzaldehyde and benzylic alcohol) as well as heavier ones (assume phenyl benzoate and benzyl benzoate) are also formed at the reaction conditions. Pure toluene and air are used as the raw materials, and the toluene conversion is kept at 3035%. As shown on the flowsheet, the toluene is recovered and recycled in one column, and the reversible by-products are recycled from the overhead of a second column. The product is recovered as a vapour sidestream (with greater than 99% purity) and the heavy components are sent to fuel. Show the hierarchy of flowsheets. .

6.- Production of acetone from isopropanol A flowsheet for a process to produce acetone from isopropanol is given below. The reaction is isopropanol acetone + H2, and an azeotropic mixture of IPA-H2O (70% mol IPA) is used as the feed stream. The reaction takes place at 1 atm, 573 K. Show the following levels of the hierarchy of flowsheets: Level 4-Separation system, Level 3-Recycle structure, Level 2-Input-Output structure.

7.- production of Bencene through hydrodealkylation of toluene (HDA) A flowsheet for the production of hydrodealkylation of toluene (HDA) is shown below. The main reactions are: Toluene + H2 Benzene + CH4 2 Benzene Diphenyl + H2 These take place at a pressure of 500 psia, 1150 F. An excess of hydrogen (5/1 ratio) is needed to prevent coking. 7.1.- Convert the reaction pressure and temperature into SI units. 7.2.- Show the following levels of hierarchy of flowsheets: Level 4-Separation system, Level 3 Recycle structure, Level 2-Input-Output structure. 7.3.- If the diphenyl in the hydrodealkylation of toluene (HDA) process is recycled to extinction, instead of being recovered, show one alternative for the hierarchy of flowsheets: input-output, recycle, separation system, distillation train. [Problem 1.3-3 (Douglas, 1988)].

8.- Manufacturing of Butadiene sulfone. Problem 5.4-9 (Douglas, 1988). Butadiene sulfone can be produced by the reaction: Butadiene + SO2 Butadiene Sulfone The reaction takes place in the liquid phase at 90 F and 150 psi. The cost are SO2= 0.064 /mol, butadiene=6.76 /mol, and butadiene sulfone= 8.50 /mol. We want to make 80 mol/h of product. 8.1.- Draw the input-output flowsheet, and plot the economic potencial. 8.2.- The reaction has a significant reverse reaction rate at the boiling point of the product; so we do not want to use distillation to recover and recycle the reactants. Suggest another separation system (not included in the general set of rules) for this process.