EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The ultimate objective of this design is to produce 100,000 MT of ethylene per

year. The purity of ethylene produced is 98.5 wt % in order to meet the market
demand. The proposed plant is to be built in Tanjung Langsat Industrial Estate, Pasir
Gudang, Johor. The proposed route selection is by catalytic dehydration of ethanol by
utilizing high temperature to produce the ethylene. The selection is based on economic,
safety and environment considerations. A base case process flow diagram (PFD) is
designed. Manual mass and energy calculation is done for purpose to give an overview
for process synthesis. Aspen HYSYS is used to simulate the process. In order to
maximize the process performance, optimization is done for the reactor and distillation
columns using GAMS software for numerical analysis.

Equipments have been through numerous calculations of sizing and costing to

meet the specification and to determine the capital cost. The control system is designed
to give the overall control of the plant. HAZOP and Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) studies
are carried out to analyse the safety of the plant. A detail mechanical design for
distillation column is done to follows the designated process specification. Finally,
profitability analysis is carried out to determine the feasibility of the proposed plant.
From the results found, it is feasible to construct this plant due to its discounted cash
flow rate of return, which is at 65.67 % after taxation and the pay back period is 4.4
years.