CASE STUDY 1

MMH Process at Global Energy Company (GEC) Ltd.

The Scenario

You and your teammates are selected as UTM’s champions to proceed to the second phase of
GEC’s Sustainable Engineering Challenge at the national level. You have passed the first phase of the
challenge, which was conducted at university level through phone interviews with GEC’s personnel.
The second phase of the challenge will be held in GEC Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan. Your team is
grouped in sustainable industrial monitoring, control and troubleshooting division with several other
teams from other universities.

The Sustainable Engineering Challenge is representative of GEC’s culture, business

principles, diversity, operations and responsibility to the risks and challenges faced in the global
energy industry. GEC realizes that the core solution to sustain the global energy industry is through
the development of sustainable human resource in terms of attitude, responsibility as well as education
quality. The challenge is basically designed for senior year undergraduate students from various
academic background of higher education all over the world. The aim of this challenge is to recruit
high quality future engineers as early as the undergraduate years. Throughout the challenge, which is
divided into several phases, GEC will be assessing candidates’ performance and development as well
as providing detailed, structured feedback to help them improve their skills and knowledge further.
And at the end of the challenge, if the candidates demonstrated all the qualities GEC are looking for,
they could receive an offer of a full-time position upon graduation.

On your first day at GEC Port Dickson, you and your teammates received an email through
your iPhone from the director of the Sustainable Engineering Challenge …

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MMH Process: line-tracing and control system identification
From : Che Embun Che Hanafi <embun@gec.com> Add to contacts
To : GEC Future Engineers <GEC.Challenge2011 @gec.com>
Date : 06/01/2011 05:00 PM

Good day future engineers!

First of all, CONGRATULATIONS and welcome to the second phase of GEC’s Sustainable Engineering Challenge!
These are challenging times, so whatever the future holds, we’ll need ambitious graduates to help us tackle
the global challenges, especially in industrial and energy resource sectors. As you all know, Part 1 is going to
consume a week in order for our division to evaluate your potential, commitment and eagerness to be our
future engineers.

Therefore, for your task, we would like you to do line-tracing and identify control system in one of our
processing plants, the MMH Process. Demonstrate your understanding in a 5- to 10-page report. In your report,
make sure you systematically describe the process from a system’s point of view. Be sure to include the input
and output variables involved in the process. Explain all aspects of the automatic control systems exist in the
plant: classify the variables, identify the control objective, and identify the control configuration used for each
control loops. Please comment if the control configurations used are sufficient to tackle the disturbances.
Enclosed are simplified process description and P&ID of the MMH Process for your reference.

Submit your report to me on 17th January 2010 and a presentation session will be held on the next day. In
addition to the report that you will be submitting as well as your presentation, other criteria that will also be
evaluated are individual teamworking skills and overall team performance. Our technical facilitators will guide
you along this program. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me.

Best Regards,
Che Embun bt. Che Hanafi
Chemical Engineer,
Industrial Plant Division, GEC Port Dickson,
Negeri Sembilan, MALAYSIA.

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 Process Review MMH Process

MMH PROCESS
THE INNOVATION OF AN ALTERNATIVE GASOLINE ADDITIVE

T
INTRODUCTION
he chemical 2-methoxy-2-methylheptane (MMH) is a gasoline additive to replace methyl
tert-butyl ether (MTBE) in order to avoid groundwater contamination. The production of
MMH involves liquid phase reversible reaction (Reaction 1) of methanol (MeOH) with
unsaturated compound 2-methoxy-2-methylheptene (MH). However, there is also an
undesirable irreversible reaction (Reaction 2) of MeOH and MH to form dimethyl ether (DME) and
2-methyl-2-heptanol (MHOH).

CH3OH + C8H16 C9H20O Reaction 1

(MeOH) (MH) (MMH)

2CH3OH + C8H16 C2 H6 O + C8H18O Reaction 2

(MeOH) (MH) (DME) (MHOH)

The activation energies of these two competing reactions favor high reactor temperature, which is
limited by catalyst activity to 400 K. However, in Reaction 1, the activation energy of the forward
MMH reaction is larger than that of the reverse reaction, which means that high reactor
temperatures should favor conversion. The desired yield of the MMH is 99%, which is increased by
either increasing reactor size or keeping the concentration of methanol in the reactor low by using
a large excess of MH in the reactor.

MMH PROCESS
The process and instrumentation diagram (P&ID) of the
MMH Process is shown in Figure 1. In MMH Process, the
reaction is carried out in a continuous stirred-tank
reactor (R001) and MMH is recovered through a series
of distillation columns (C001 and C002). Residual MH
that is used in excess amount during the reaction is
recycled back to the process through a recycle stream.

R001 is a 12 m3 continuous stirred-tank reactor

operating at 400 K and 12 atm. Fresh MeOH and MH are
fed to reactor together with the recycle stream of MH.

The boiling points of the components leaving the R001 are quite different, yet, it is fairly easy to
separate those using distillation columns. The reactor effluent is fed on stage 8 of a 12-stage
distillation column (C001) that operates at 10 atm. It gives a reflux-drum temperature of 318 K
and permits the use of cooling water in the condenser. The distillate product is a small stream of
99.9 mol% DME. As the separation between DME and methanol is easy, the reflux ratio for the first
separation process is only 0.8. High pressure steam (HP-Steam) of 42 bar with 527 K is utilized in
the reboiler, so that the desired bottom temperature can be achieved. The heat produced is
essentially required to increase the sensible heat of the feed from 400 K up to the bottom
temperature, 509 K.

The bottom stream from C001 is fed on stage 23 of C002, which separates the desired product
MMH from the residual MH. C002 operates under vacuum conditions of 0.4 atm with a reflux-drum
temperature of 358 K. For this column, a reflux ratio of 2.198 is required to achieve the specified
separation. The bottom temperature is 410 K, so medium-pressure steam (MP-Steam) can be used
in the reboiler (11 bar, 457 K). The distillate of C002, which is mainly MH of 98.55 mol% purity, is
recycled back to the process. Meanwhile, the bottom stream, which mainly consists of the desired
product MMH and by-product MHOH is fed to the third distillation column (that is not included in
the P&ID) for final separation.

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 CW

V114

PC

V102 M 101 MH Recycle LT

MH Feed PT
LC
CW V113
FC
Total MH
8
FT TT
V109
V112 TC 23
PC

LT 28
RS PT TT
41
LC
V108 LT TC
C002
3
TT LT LC
FC LC MP-Steam
TC 6 V107
FT V111
FC
R001 RR
CW V104 8 V110
TT MMH +
FT V103
11 MMOH
MeOH Feed LT TC
V101 C001

HP-Steam DME
LC
V106

V105

DRAWING OWNED BY: PROJECT & PROCESS: PIPING & INSTRUMENTATION DIAGRAM (P&ID):
MMH Process - Gasoline Additive Petrochemical Plant 6 (MMH Process)
Production of Sustainable Gasoline Scale: Drawn: Drawing No.: Date:
Global Energy Company NTS Che Embun MMH.Plant/R001.C001.C002.C003 5th January 2011
Figure 1. MMH Process
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