RECOMMENDATION

Based on this design plant, the reaction of ethylene oxide and water is not fully converted to our desired
product which is ethylene glycol. Therefore, there are few recommendation to increase the conversion of
ethylene oxide to ethylene glycol. Firstly, we can increase the concentration of ethylene oxide fed into the
reactor. As a results, the rate of reaction will also increase as the high concentration of reactants will lead
to more effective collision per unit time. Next, since the activation energy of diethylene glycol is slightly
greater than ethylene glycol, thus operate reactor at lowest temperature are more preferred to maximize
the conversion of desired product. Other than that, by carry out the process with greater than 20 times
molar excess of water can minimize higher glycol and most importantly can promote high selectivity of
ethylene glycol. Thus, high selectivity can lead to achieve at least 90% conversion of ethylene oxide to
ethylene glycol. Furthermore, the use of catalysts to reduce ratio of water/ethylene oxide ratio can be
chosen as the catalyst works by increasing the frequency of collision between ethylene oxides and water
in order to produce ethylene glycol.

In addition, a more modern technology can be used such as reaction of ethylene oxide with carbon
dioxide, CO2 to produce ethylene carbonate (EO) and afterwards reaction of ethylene carbonate with
water to form ethylene glycol, both reaction being catalyzed. Consequently, the reaction via ethylene
carbonate can improve the selectivity of ethylene oxide conversion to monoethylene glycol compared to
the reaction of ethylene oxide with a large excess of water via a non-catalytic process. This catalytic
hydrolysis of ethylene carbonate requires a ratio of 2:1 water to carbonate by weight compared to the non-
catalytic hydrolysis of ethylene oxide requires a ratio of 20:1 water to ethylene oxide. Thus, operation
cost can be reduce to optimum.