Base Case Design of Reactive Column

The prereactor is a cooled tubular reactor containing 9544 kg of catalyst. All of the C5 fresh feed is fed to the prereactor along with a portion of the total methanol. The C5 fresh feed flowrate is 1040 kmol/h. The fresh feed of methanol coming into the process is 232 kmol/h, but there is a large methanol recycle stream from the recovery section. The flowrate of the recycle methanol is 318 kmol/h. The total methanol (550 kmol/h) is split between the prereactor (315 kmol/h) and the reactive distillation column (235 kmol/h). 

Reboiler heat input and condenser heat removal are 38.2 and 39 MW, respectively. The opCTating pressure is 4 bar, and the column diameter is 5.5 m. The overall conversion of 2M1B and 2M2B in the C5 fresh feed is 92.4%. 

Distillate Di has a composition of methanol (28 mol% methanol) that is near the azeotrope at 4 bar. It is fed at a rate of 1122 kmol/h to the methanol recovery columns section. Table 8.2 gives information about important streams associated with the prereactor and reactive distillation column. 

It is interesting to explore reactive columns that are different from the one recommended by Subawalla and Fair. In this section several design parameters are changed, and their impacts on the steady-state performance of the reactive column arc determined. 

In order to obtain the same basic operation while design parameters are changed, two design spec/vary functions are set up in column block Cl. 

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