Methanol process flowsheet

Figure 8.2 Conceptual flowsheet of hybrid FutureGen/Methanol process.

The process flowsheet is given in Figure 4.4 [38]. Acetone and hydrogen cyanide are reacted in a strong base. Sulfuric acid is used to neutralize excess alkali to prevent the decomposition of the cyanohydrin then sodium sulfate is filtered out and the unreacted HCN and acetone are recycled by distillation. The cyanohydrin is hydrolyzed with sulfuric acid to form methacrylamide sulfate. The methacrylamide sulfate reacts with methanol to form methyl methacrylate and ammonium bisulfate. Distillation removes methyl methacrylate and unreacted methanol which is recycled. Water extraction is used to remove any excess methanol and the monomer is purified to 99.8% in a rerun tower. This is the only process used in United States to produce methyl methacrylate [39]. 

Figure 2.4 displays the simplified flowsheet of a low-pressure methanol process (Ullmann, 2001). The graphical user interface of a modem simulation packages could tempt a novice user to enter a simulation problem directly, without analysis. Examine the modelling issues that simulation of this process could arise. 

Methanol Methanol yield 0.591 kg methanol/1 kg the equivalent amount of electricity. Source Process flowsheet Source Process flowsheet... 

In figure 1 TAME synthesis process flowsheet using catalytic distillation is presented. The C5 fraction is mixed with methanol and the resulting stream is fed to the preliminary reactor (IV). The resulting mixture is mixed with a recycled methanol stream and is fed to a catalytic distillation column, below the reaction zone. 

The process flowsheet has a prereactor, a reactive distillation column, and a methanol-recovery section. A methanol-recovery section is required because the inert C5 components coming in with the reactive iso-amylenes in the C5 fresh feed form azeotropes with methanol. The result is that a significant amount of methanol is present in the distillate from the reactive column. 

Figure 8.12. Selecting this page tab reveals the icon ConSep. Dragging and dropping this icon onto the process flowsheet window places a block there, which we labeled Ternary. Feed and product streams are inserted in the normal way using Material STREAMS. The conditions of the feed are specified, as shown in Figure 8.13. The feed is 40 mol% iCs, 30 mol% methanol, and 30 mol% TAME in this illustrative example.

Figure 3.21 Flowsheet of the Halcon SD Process of methanol to ethanol. Source [32].

Figure 3.33 Flowsheet of the CDTech MTBE/ETBE/TAME process. (1) boiling point reactor, (2) CD column, (3) extraction column, (4) methanol recovery column. Source [61].

Figure 2.4 Flowsheet for the low pressure process for methanol (Ullmann, 2001)...

The flowsheet in Fig. 4.2 shows a typical distillation system which may be used to describe the process reactions and main characteristics of the equipment used. In addition to dimethyl ether, methyl formiate, acetone and hydrocarbons up to about Cg, the low boilers in a broader sense include also that part of the gases dissolved in the raw methanol which is not expelled when this is flashed into an interim storage tank. This flashing operation is normally performed at pressures between 5-10 bar in order to keep methanol losses down, but frequently also in order to ensiure that the raw methanol can be transferred to the light ends column without using a pump. 

Flowsheet analysis and HEN synthesis problem. A material balance has been completed for a process to manufacture styrene and an ethylbenzene byproduct from reactions involving methanol and toluene. See Figure 10.61 for a block flow diagram of the process with the results of material balance calculations. You are to develop an optimal heat exchanger network for this process. Note that ... 

Figure 8.1 gives the flowsheet of process (Figure 5.1). The 540kmol/h of fresh feed is a binary mixture of acetone and methanol, which is fed on Stage 24 of a 37-stage column operating at 1 atm. The DMSO solvent is fed on Stage 4 at a flow rate of 271 kmol/h. High-purity acetone (99.95 mol%) is the distillate product of the extractive column. The reflux ratio (RR) is 0.842.

Figure 9.7 gives the flowsheet of the process. There is a prereactor upstream of the reactive distillation column Cl. The flowsheet contains three distillation columns (one reactive) and there are two recycle streams (methanol and water). The design of the prereactor and reactive column is based on the study of Subawalla and Fair. ... 

The Unisol process (22, 47, 107, 122) uses methanol as the added agent to improve the caustic soda solution. Since it is soluble in gasoline, the flowsheet must be arranged to remove it, as in Fig. 11.8. H2S-free gasoline is extracted with aqueous caustic-methanol in the lower part of the packed extraction tower, and the methanol is extracted from the treated gasoline by aqueous caustic in the upper part. The combined caustic-methanol... 

Next, add a splitter that splits the hot outlet into two streams. One of those streams should be the lean methanol recycled to the feed at the beginning of the process. Note that this connection will create another tear stream on the flowsheet, which is the... 

Wu Y. C., I. L. Chien, and W. L. Luyhen, Two-stripper/decanter flowsheet for methanol recovery in the TAME reactive-distillation process, Ind. Engng. Chem. Res., 48, 10532-10540 (2009). 

Figure 5.12 gives the flowsheet for the entire process. The distillate from the reactive distillation colmnn Cl has a methanol concentration of 28.1 mol%. It is fed into the two-column pressiu e-swing methanol recovery system. Equipment sizes and economic data are given in Table 5.3. 

Figure 11.11 gives the flowsheet for the revised extractive distillation process in which the pressure in the methanol column is increased from 1 to 5 atm. This raises the reflux-drum temperature to 385 K with the 99.5 mol% methanol distillate. The base of the extractive column is 364 K, so there is a reasonable 21 K differential temperature driving force to... 

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