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Computer Aided Process Design and Simulation Group Assignment II (10%)

This document describes a process simulation assignment to produce 75,000 tonnes/year of cumene from benzene and propylene. Students are asked to: 1) Simulate the process in Figure 1 using Aspen, including a conversion reactor. Write a report discussing assumptions and analyzing temperature/concentration profiles and a sensitivity analysis. 2) The process involves two reactions to produce cumene and a byproduct. Feeds, products, equipment and specifications are defined. The reactor is modeled as isothermal with given conversions and selectivities. Two distillation columns are used to separate products with defined purities.

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Hadis Syoum
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64 views2 pages

Computer Aided Process Design and Simulation Group Assignment II (10%)

This document describes a process simulation assignment to produce 75,000 tonnes/year of cumene from benzene and propylene. Students are asked to: 1) Simulate the process in Figure 1 using Aspen, including a conversion reactor. Write a report discussing assumptions and analyzing temperature/concentration profiles and a sensitivity analysis. 2) The process involves two reactions to produce cumene and a byproduct. Feeds, products, equipment and specifications are defined. The reactor is modeled as isothermal with given conversions and selectivities. Two distillation columns are used to separate products with defined purities.

Uploaded by

Hadis Syoum
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Computer Aided Process Design and Simulation

Group Assignment II (10%)

1. Simulate the process in Figure 1 using Aspen, with a conversion reactor. Write a short report (max 10 pages) to
discuss the decisions and assumptions you made, for instance (10 pts)
a) Analyze the temperature and concentration profile of all the columns. Conclusion?
b) Perform a sensitivity analysis on either the entire flowsheet or a selected operation?
Simulate a process to produce 75,000 tonne/y of cumene (C) from benzene (B) in an 8000-hour year.

The reactions for cumene production are as follows:

C3H6 + C6H6  C6H5-C3H7

propylene + benzene  cumene

C3H6 + C6H5-C3H7  C3H7-C6H4-C3H7

Propylene + cumene  p-diisopropyl benzene (DIPB)

The reactor is operated as an isothermal packed bed reactor. In first instance it is simulated as a conversion reactor
with a propylene conversion of 99%. The selectivity is 31/1 cumene/DIPB on molar basis.

A flow sheet of this process is proposed in figure 1. Additional heater/coolers and pumps/compressor/expanders
might be needed to simulate the process correctly.

3 10 12
1 - Benzene
8 Benzene Cumene
5 6 Propylene/Propane

P-101
4
2 - Propylene H-101

P-102

7 9 11
13
DIPB
R-201 V-301
T-401 T-402

Figure 1 Flow sheet of the cumene process.


Computer Aided Process Design and Simulation
Group Assignment II (10%)

Process Details
Feed Streams

Stream 1: benzene, pure liquid at 1 bar, 25°C


Stream 2: propyle with 5% propane impurity, saturated liquid at 15 bar and 25°C

Effluent Streams

Stream 8: Unreacted propylene and propane. Used as fuel for the process (not simulated)
Stream 12: >99.5 mole% pure cumene, production rate 75,000 tonne/year
Stream 13: Pure DIPB (can be found as 1,4-IP-Bz)

Equipment Name Comments

P-101/102 Feed pumps and heater Liquid feeds are vaporized and heated for reactor
H-101
R-201 Reactor Vapors are reacted over catalyst; temperature 350C; pressure 25
bar. Feed ratio benzene:propylene 2:1 on molar basis; 99%
propylene conversion per pass; 31/1 cumene/DIPB molar
selectivity. Assume isothermal operation.
V-301 Separator Vapors are cooled and depressurized to 1.3 bar. Pressure.
Temperature is chosen so that 95% of the benzene is recovered in
the liquid bottom stream.
T-401 Distillation Tower No. 1 Overhead stream contains >98 mole% benzene (any
propene/propane ignored), bottoms stream contains cumene and
DIPB. Select the second specification yourself. Take a bottom
pressure of 1.2 bar
T-402 Distillation Tower No. 2 Overhead stream contains >99.5 mole% cumene; bottoms stream
contains 99.5 mole% pure DIPB. Take a bottom pressure of 1.1 bar.

Hint:

The distillation columns are always modeled using Radfrac. However, to get information for the rad frac they have
to be modeled first using DSTUW which will give information regarding the minimum reflux ratio, number of stages
and feed location etc.

Deadline Jan 4, 2020

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