Question

Ethyl chloride will be produced by the gas-phase reaction of HCl with ethylene over a
copper chloride catalyst supported on silica as

C2 H 4 + HCl C 2 H 5 Cl

C2 H 4 N2
The feed stream is composed of 50 mol% HCl, 48 mol% , and 2 mol% at

100 kmol/hr, 25 C, and 1 atm. Since the reaction achieves only 90 mol% conversion,
the ethyl chloride product is separated from the unreacted reagents, and the latter is
recycled. The separation is achieved by using a distillation column, where it is assumed
that a perfect separation is achievable. The process is operated at atmospheric
pressure, and pressure drops are ignored. To prevent the accumulation of inerts in the
system, 10 kmol/hr is withdrawn is a purge stream, W. show the effect of the flowrate of
the purge stream, W on the recycle R and on the composition of the reactor feed.

Solution

1. Start HYSIS set base property package (Peng Robinson) click fluid package
click component and add component. (ethylene or ethane, hydrogen chloride,
ethyl chloride and nitrogen) close fluid package.
2. Click simulation. Add equipments one by one. (mixer, conversion reactor,
component splitter, and recycler).
3. Name all the streams.
4. Click flowsheet/ reaction package add reaction set choose conversion. Add
three components (ethylene, hydrogen chloride and ethyl chloride) and its stoich
coefficient (-1, -1, 1).
Click basis page fix ethylene as basis, type 90 for C (percentage conversion).
5. Go to PFD. Double click Conversion reactor select Rxn 1
6. Double click the Recycle and set the parameters to be 1.
7. Double click Component splitter click splits (Under Design) fill 0 for
CIC2 and 1 for the other three comps.
8. Make sure the units are in SI units. click workbook fill in all the given
conditions (starting from FEED STREAM [Temp : 25 C, Pressure: 1atm and
Molar flow : 100 kmol/hr]. double click the Molar flow fill in the compositions).
9. Continue to fill the workbook for R* STREAM (the stream from recycler entering
into mixer) with the flowrate of 0 and the condition and composition same as the
FEED STREAM. Fill in the Temp (25 C) for S3, S4 and P. Fill in the pressure (1
atm) of the stream S4 and P.
10. Specify the molar flowrate of the W STREAM to be 10 kmol/hr. Now make sure
the its ACTIVE. Now you can open the worksheet to see the calculation.

Figure 1: Example of the flow diagram