Recycle streams

Additional separation and recycling. Once the possibilities for recycling streams directly, feed purification, and eliminating the use of extraneous materials for separation that cannot be recycled efiiciently have been exhausted, attention is turned to the fourth option, the degree of material recovery from the waste streams that are left. One very important point which should not be forgotten is that once the waste stream is rejected, any valuable material turns into a liability as an effluent material. The level of recovery in such situations needs careful consideration. It may be economical to carry out additional separation of the valuable material with a view to recycling that additional recovered material, particularly when the cost of downstream effluent treatment is taken into consideration. 

High purity acetaldehyde is desirable for oxidation. The aldehyde is diluted with solvent to moderate oxidation and to permit safer operation. In the hquid take-off process, acetaldehyde is maintained at 30—40 wt % and when a vapor product is taken, no more than 6 wt % aldehyde is in the reactor solvent. A considerable recycle stream is returned to the oxidation reactor to increase selectivity. Recycle air, chiefly nitrogen, is added to the air introducted to the reactor at 4000—4500 times the reactor volume per hour. The customary catalyst is a mixture of three parts copper acetate to one part cobalt acetate by weight. Either salt alone is less effective than the mixture. Copper acetate may be as high as 2 wt % in the reaction solvent, but cobalt acetate ought not rise above 0.5 wt %. The reaction is carried out at 45—60°C under 100—300 kPa (15—44 psi). The reaction solvent is far above the boiling point of acetaldehyde, but the reaction is so fast that Httle escapes unoxidized. This temperature helps oxygen absorption, reduces acetaldehyde losses, and inhibits anhydride hydrolysis. 

The catalytic vapor-phase oxidation of propylene is generally carried out in a fixed-bed multitube reactor at near atmospheric pressures and elevated temperatures (ca 350°C) molten salt is used for temperature control. Air is commonly used as the oxygen source and steam is added to suppress the formation of flammable gas mixtures. Operation can be single pass or a recycle stream may be employed. Recent interest has focused on improving process efficiency and minimizing process wastes by defining process improvements that use recycle of process gas streams and/or use of new reaction diluents (20-24). 

Acryflc acid, alcohol, and the catalyst, eg, sulfuric acid, together with the recycle streams are fed to the glass-lined ester reactor fitted with an external reboiler and a distillation column. Acrylate ester, excess alcohol, and water of esterification are taken overhead from the distillation column. The process is operated to give only traces of acryflc acid in the distillate. The bulk of the organic distillate is sent to the wash column for removal of alcohol and acryflc acid a portion is returned to the top of the distillation column. If required, some base may be added during the washing operation to remove traces of acryflc acid. 

A schematic diagram of a six-vessel UOP Cyclesorb process is shown in Figure 15. The UOP Cyclesorb process has four external streams feed and desorbent enter the process, and extract and raffinate leave the process. In addition, the process has four internal recycles dilute raffinate, impure raffinate, impure extract, and dilute extract. Feed and desorbent are fed to the top of each column, and the extract and raffinate are withdrawn from the bottom of each column in a predeterrnined sequence estabUshed by a switching device, the UOP rotary valve. The flow of the internal recycle streams is from the bottom of a column to the top of the same column in the case of dilute extract and impure raffinate and to the top of the next column in the case of dilute raffinate and impure extract. 

Waste Treatment. Environmental concerns have increased the need to treat Hquid discharges from all types of industrial processes, as well as mnoffs where toxic substances appear as a result of leaks or following solubilization (see Wastes, industrial). One method of treatment consists of an ion-exchange system to remove the objectionable components only. Another involves complete or partial elimination of Hquid discharges by recycling streams within the plant. This method is unacceptable unless a cycHc increase in the impurities is eliminated by removing all constituents prior to recycling. 

Only with propanal are very high conversions (99%) and selectivity (> 98 0) to MMA and MAA possible at this time. Although nearly 95% selective, the highest reported conversions with propionic acid or methyl propionate are only 30—40%. This results in large recycle streams and added production costs. The propanal route suffers from the added expense of the additional step required to oxidize methacrolein to methacrylic acid. 

About 310 kj /mol (75 kcal/mol) of heat is released during this reaction and the exotherm is controlled by adjusting the recycle streams. Part of the heat is used to raise the temperature of the reaction mixture the final 30°C while a large amount of heat is expended in vaporizing the ammonia. 

Recycle stream (consult Recycle heuristics for guidance). 

Selection of Fractionator 11 gives pure hexane, which can be recycled to Mixer 1. The distillate Dll, however, is a problem. It cannot be distilled because of its location next to a distillation boundary. It is outside of the two-phase region, so it cannot be decanted. In essence, no further separations are possible. However, using the Recycle heuristics, it can be mixed into the MSA recycle stream without changing the operation of Mixer 1 appreciably. However, as both outlet streams are mixed together. Fractionator 11 is not really needed. The mixture of hexane and isopropanol, 07, could have been used as the MSA composition in the first place. 

Fig. 3. Schematic of the key steps in a sodium chlorate plant where ( ) represents recycle streams and (-------), process for solution product. Most plants...

The SRC-II process, shown in Figure 2, was developed in order to minimise the production of soHds from the SRC-I coal processing scheme. The principal variation of the SRC-II process relative to SRC-I was incorporation of a recycle loop for the heavy ends of the primary Hquefaction process. It was quickly realized that minerals which were concentrated in this recycle stream served as heterogeneous hydrogenation catalysts which aided in the distillate production reactions. In particular, pyrrhotites, non stoichiometric iron sulfides, produced by reduction of iron pyrite were identified as being... 

Effects of Impurities nd Solvent. The presence of impurities usually decreases the growth rates of crystalline materials, and problems associated with the production of crystals smaller than desired are commonly attributed to contamination of feed solutions. Strict protocols should be followed in operating units upstream from a crystallizer to minimize the possibiUty of such occurrences. Equally important is monitoring the composition of recycle streams so as to detect possible accumulation of impurities. Furthermore, crystalliza tion kinetics used in scaleup should be obtained from experiments on solutions as similar as possible to those expected in the full-scale process. 

Completing the Separation Sequence. In the remainder of the separation sequence the distiUate stream leaving the azeotropic column, column 2 in Fig. 19a, must be separated into a product stream and a recycle stream so that the entire sequence is closed with respect to the entrainer. 

Butyl slurry at 25—35 wt % mbber continuously overflows from the reactor through a transferline to an agitated flash dmm operating at 140—160 kPa (1.4—1.6 atm) and 55—70°C. Steam and hot water are mixed with the slurry in a nozzle as it enters the dmm to vaporize methyl chloride and unreacted monomers that pass overhead to a recovery system. The vapor stream is compressed, dried over alumina, and fractionated to yield a recycle stream of methyl chloride and isobutylene. Pure methyl chloride is recovered for the coinitiator (AlCl ) preparation. In the flash dmm, the polymer agglomerates as a coarse cmmb in water. Metal stearate, eg, aluminum, calcium, or zinc stearate, is added to control the cmmb size. Other additives, such as antioxidants, can also be introduced at this point. The polymer cmmb at 8—12 wt % in water flows from the flash dmm to a stripping vessel operated under high vacuum to... 

All reactor modes can sometimes be advantageously operated with recychng of part of the product or intermediate streams. Heated or cooled recycle streams serve to moderate undesirable temperature travels, and they can be processed for changes in composition before being returned. 

Exploitation of boundaiy curvature for breaking azeotropes is veiy similar to exploiting pressure sensitivity from a mass-balance point of view, and suffers from the same disadvantages. Separation schemes have large recycle flows, and in the case of minimum-boiling azeotropes, the recycle streams are distillates. However, in the case of maximum-boihng azeotropes, these recycles are underflows and... 

In a differential reactor the product stream differs from the feed only very slightly, so the addition of products to the feed stream can be avoided if most of the product stream is recycled. The feed can be made up mostly from the recycle stream with just enough starting materials added to replace that which was converted in the reaction and blown off in the discharge stream. This is the basis of loop or recycle reactors, as will be explained later. 

Another view is given in Figure 3.1.2 (Berty 1979), to understand the inner workings of recycle reactors. Here the recycle reactor is represented as an ideal, isothermal, plug-flow, tubular reactor with external recycle. This view justifies the frequently used name loop reactor. As is customary for the calculation of performance for tubular reactors, the rate equations are integrated from initial to final conditions within the inner balance limit. This calculation represents an implicit problem since the initial conditions depend on the result because of the recycle stream. Therefore, repeated trial and error calculations are needed for recycle... 

These models are usually overall plant or corporation oriented and are geared toward running the business. If utilities are included, they are probably keyed to production levels of operating units or, in the case of the polyolefin plant, a characteristic set of utilities is charged against each unit of each specialty product. Often, recycle streams within segments of the operation are not pertinent and not included. 

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