Process Simulation and Optimization of Distillation Column for

Separation of Ethylene Oxide and Water

Jwal Soni1, Ronak Soni2
1
Department of Chemical Engineering, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University,
2
Zeppelin Systems India Pvt Ltd.

Abstract— Ethylene oxide is a very important chemical compound used in industries ranging from
chemical, petrochemical, as well as pharmaceuticals. Ethylene oxide is primarily used as an
intermediate for the production of other chemicals like ethylene glycol which are then used to
produce polyesters, antifreeze for engines, cosmetics and so on. The conventional process used for
the production of ethylene oxide includes direct oxidation of ethylene in the presence of oxygen and
using silver as a catalyst. The ethylene oxide produced as a result of this reaction is in aqueous phase
and other than this, various other impurities like carbon dioxide, acetaldehyde and formaldehyde are
also produced. The carbon dioxide can be removed in an absorber / stripper system; however, the
process stream leaving this system still contains water, acetaldehyde, and formaldehyde which are
needed to be separated. Thus, this stream then enters a purification system that removes these
contaminants, producing a stream of ethylene oxide that meets certain purity. This paper describes
the process design and simulation of a distillation column to determine the theoretical as wells as
actual number of stages, feed location and reflux ratio, using ASPEN HYSYS software for
separation ethylene oxide and water, and selection of a suitable proper property package which gives
accurate values of mixture properties to describe the VLE data. O’Connell’s empirical relation was
used to determine the plate efficiency for the calculation of actual number of stages. This analysis
will thus prove beneficial for designers in industry who deal with separation of ethylene oxide from
its aqueous solution.
Keywords— ethylene oxide, simulation, optimization, ASPEN HYSYS, number of stages, reflux
ratio
I. INTRODUCTION
Ethylene oxide (CH2 CH2)O is a versatile man-made chemical compound having molecular
weight 44.05 g/mol. It is a colourless gas or liquid and has a sweet, etheric odour used in a number of
industries for various purposes including an intermediate for the manufacture of polyesters, as
antifreeze for car engines and many more. The present available method of production of ethylene
oxide includes:
A. Chlorohydrin process of production of ethylene oxide:
Production by ethylene chlorohydrins involves the production of chlorohydrins by the reaction of
ethylene with hypochlorous acid,
Cl2 + H2O HOCl
CH2=CH2 + HOCl HO-CH2 –CH2-Cl
and then dehydrochlorination of ethylene chlorohydrin using lime to produce ethylene oxide.
HO-CH2-CH2-Cl + Ca(OH)2 2(CH2CH2)O +CaCl2 + H2O
Although the selectivity of this process (80 %) was satisfactory, practically all of the chlorine that
was used was lost as calcium chloride and unwanted chlorine containing by products were generated.
This not only was inefficient, but also caused pollution problems so this method has now been
replaced by the direct oxidation process.

DOI:10.23883/IJRTER.2020.6022.HYDXW 6
 International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering & Research (IJRTER)
Volume 06, Issue 04; April - 2020 [ISSN: 2455-1457]

B. Direct oxidation process of ethylene using silver as a catalyst:

In direct oxidation process Ethylene (95-98% purity) and oxygen (air with 95 mole% of oxygen) are
mixed in a ratio of 1:10 by weight and passed over a catalyst consisting of silver oxide deposited on
an inert carrier such as corundum. The use of silver oxide as a catalyst is to reduce the formation of
carbon dioxide, however, as the catalyst ages, the formation of carbon dioxide increases; generally
an anti-catalyst such as ethylene dichloride (about 2% based on the weight of ethylene) is added to
the ethylene feed to suppress the formation of carbon dioxide. As an alternative vent gases form the
absorber may be recycled to the reactor in such quantity as to keep the ethylene concentration in the
feed at 3-5%. At a pressure of 4-5 atmospheres and temperature of 270-300 °C, when a contact time
of 1 sec is used, about 50 % of ethylene is converted. 25% of the ethylene is converted to ethylene
oxide. The effluent gases from the reactor includes carbon dioxide, traces of acetaldehyde &
formaldehyde are washed with water under pressure in an absorber. The ethylene is absorbed and
sent to a desorber to desorb the water, which is used for the absorption. This water is recycled, the
overhead product from the desorbed is then sent to a steam stripper to remove the dissolved gases.
The water- ethylene oxide mixture with small amount of ethylene and other impurities are fed to a
fractionating column to purify the ethylene oxide to 99.995 weight%. Liquid ethylene oxide and
water are completely miscible in all proportions. However, ethylene oxide needs to be separated
from its aqueous solution in order to use it for various industrial purposes. So, this paper describes
the best suited design for the recovery of ethylene oxide from water taking into considerations all the
parameters including cost, auto ignition temperature of ethylene oxide (804oF and 1atm) as well as
safety.

II. THERMODYNAMIC PACKAGE SELECTION

Before the designing of any unit operation in any simulation software a thermodynamic package
needs to be selected in order to obtain the Vapor-Liquid Equilibrium (VLE) data, prediction of
thermodynamic as well as physical properties. The choice of appropriate thermodynamic model is
crucial for reliability of the design. Considering EO-Water system, which is polar in natural and
tends to form Hydrogen Bond, hence activity co-efficient methods are selected. NRTL method is
selected for predicting physical & thermodynamic properties.

III. SIMULATION OF DISTILLATION COLUMN USING ASPEN HYSYS

3.1 HYSYS simulation

Figure 2. Flowsheet for separation of ethylene oxide and water

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 International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering & Research (IJRTER)
Volume 06, Issue 04; April - 2020 [ISSN: 2455-1457]

3.1.1. Determination of theoretical number of stages.

The simulation was carried out in ASPEN HYSYS v10 .In this simulation, the optimized number of
trays, reflux ratio, condenser duty as well as reboiler duty of the distillation column and henceforth
the volume of cooling water to the condenser and the steam required in the reboiler were determined
using the rigorous distillation column model available in ASPEN HYSYS.

Figure 3.Input conditions to the feed stream of the column

A mixture of ethylene oxide and water having equal mass was fed to the column at its bubble point at
a pressure of 3 kg/cm2_g at the rate of 200kgmol/h.
In the rigorous distillation column model the condenser pressure varying from 0.5kg/cm2_g till 2.5
kg/cm2_g with a step change of 0.5 kg/cm2_g is given as input and the corresponding reflux ratio,
condenser duty as well as the reboiler duty are calculated on the basis of obtaining 99.995% purity of
ethylene oxide and water in the distillate and the residue respectively, as the operating specifications.
Also, at each condenser pressure, convergence of the column is calculated with the number of stages
varying from 8 till 20 and each specified trays’ reflux ratio, condenser duty and reboiler duty are
calculated to finally obtain the cooling water and steam requirements.

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 International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering & Research (IJRTER)
Volume 06, Issue 04; April - 2020 [ISSN: 2455-1457]

Figure 4.Variation of the cooling water requirement with number of stages

at different condenser pressures

Figure 5.Variation of the steam requirement with number of stages

at different condenser pressures

Figure 4 shows the volume of cooling water required for the condenser in m3/h vs the number of
stages and figure 5 shows the steam requirement for the reboiler in tonnes/h at different number of
stages. Since it can be seen from the graph, that the amount of cooling water and the steam required
remains essentially same after 16 stages, it can be inferred that 16 stages are the optimized number of
theoretical stages for obtaining 99.995% purity of ethylene oxide.

3.1.2. Determination of actual number of stages.

Considering the numbers of theoretical stages required for obtaining a purity of 99.995% as 16, the
actual number of stages are calculated using O’Connell’s empirical relationship. However, these
stages are calculated taking into account the assumption that the efficiency of all the trays is unity.
Hence, to estimate the actual efficiency of the trays, following equation is used:
ŋsection = (Nth) / (Ntrays)
where,

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 International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering & Research (IJRTER)
Volume 06, Issue 04; April - 2020 [ISSN: 2455-1457]

ŋsection is the efficiency of a particular section;

Nth is the number of theoretical trays; and
Ntrays is the number of actual trays.
The efficiency of a particular section is determined by the O’Connell’s empirical relationship:
ŋsection = 0.503*(µ L*α)-0.226
where,
µ L is viscosity of liquid in mPa-s; and
α is relative volatility of the mixture.
Hence, for the calculation of the actual number of trays, the relative volatility at each tray and the
liquid viscosity at each tray need to be determined.
So, the liquid viscosity at each tray is determined using the utility manager function available in the
ASPEN HYSYS and using K-plots table, the relative volatility is calculated using the equation:
α = KL / KH
where,
KL is the K- value for the light key component (in this case, ethylene oxide).
KH is the K-value for the heavy key component (in this case, water).
After determining the liquid viscosity and the relative volatility for each tray, the averaged value of
the respective quantities in the entire rectifying and stripping sections were used to calculate the
efficiency of the rectifying and the stripping sections respectively. And finally, using these values the
actual number of stages was calculated.
Table 1 shows the reflux ratio, chilled/cooling water requirement, steam requirement, number of
actual and theoretical stages, at varying condenser pressures.

Table 1.Data obtained at different condenser pressures

(.*): Chilled Water Required.

IV. CONCLUSION
The simulation for the separation of ethylene oxide and water was carried out in ASPEN HYSYS
v10 and the results obtained show that in spite of vast difference in their boiling points, they cannot
be separated easily due to poor rectification as well as stripping section efficiencies. .
The optimum theoretical number of stages required for this separation is 16 and for different
condenser pressures, the requirement of the chilled/cooling water as well as steam is calculated.
The data obtained was then used to find the efficiency of the trays at rectifying and stripping
sections and subsequently the actual number of stages was determined to obtain a purity of 99.995%
of ethylene oxide.

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 International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering & Research (IJRTER)
Volume 06, Issue 04; April - 2020 [ISSN: 2455-1457]

REFERENCES
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