Chemical Process Systems Design – Diseño de Procesos Químicos

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 ºC, 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 30-
35%. 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 ºF 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.