Effect of Kinetic and Design Parameters on Ternary Reactive Distillation Columns William L. Luyben* Department of Chemical Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015
Chemical Engineering and Processing 46 (2007) 774–780
Reactive distillation: The front-runner of industrial process intensification A full review of commercial applications, research, scale-up, design and operation
G. Jan Harmsen a,b a Shell Global Solutions, Shell Research and Technology Center Amsterdam, P.O. Box 38000, 1030 BN Amsterdam, The Netherlands b RijksUniversiteit Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands Received 19 June 2007; accepted 20 June 2007 Available online 23 June 2007
Abstract Most industrial scale reactive distillations (presently more than 150), operated worldwide today at capacities of 100–3000 ktonnes/y, and are reported in this paper. Most of these plants started up less than 15 years ago. The drivers, processes, systems, scale-up methods and partner collaborations for this rapid invasion of a new process intensified technique are explained in this paper. The business drivers are (a) economical (prosperity): variable cost, capital expenditure and energy requirement reduction. In all cases these are reduced by 20% or more, when compared to the classic set-up of a reactor followed by distillation. (b) Environmental (planet): lower emissions to the environment. In all cases carbon dioxide and diffusive emissions are reduced and (c) social (people): improvements on safely, health and society impact are obtained by lower reactive content, lower run away sensitivity and lower space occupation. These industrial reactive distillation systems comprise homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysed, irreversible and reversible reactions, covering large ranges of reactions, notably hydrogenations, hydrodesulfurisation, esterifications and etherification. Various commercial methods for packing heterogeneous catalyst in columns are now available. The systems comprise amongst others: multiple catalyst systems, gas and liquid internal recycle traffic over these catalyst systems, separation, mass flow, and enthalpy exchange. These are
Reactive distillation: The front-runner of industrial process intensification A full review of commercial applications, research, scale-up, design and operation
G. Jan Harmsen a,b a Shell Global Solutions, Shell Research and Technology Center Amsterdam, P.O. Box 38000, 1030 BN Amsterdam, The Netherlands b RijksUniversiteit Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands Received 19 June 2007; accepted 20 June 2007 Available online 23 June 2007
Abstract Most industrial scale reactive distillations (presently more than 150), operated worldwide today at capacities of 100–3000 ktonnes/y, and are reported in this paper. Most of these plants started up less than 15 years ago. The drivers, processes, systems, scale-up methods and partner collaborations for this rapid invasion of a new process intensified technique are explained in this paper. The business drivers are (a) economical (prosperity): variable cost, capital expenditure and energy requirement reduction. In all cases these are reduced by 20% or more, when compared to the classic set-up of a reactor followed by distillation. (b) Environmental (planet): lower emissions to the environment. In all cases carbon dioxide and diffusive emissions are reduced and (c) social (people): improvements on safely, health and society impact are obtained by lower reactive content, lower run away sensitivity and lower space occupation. These industrial reactive distillation systems comprise homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysed, irreversible and reversible reactions, covering large ranges of reactions, notably hydrogenations, hydrodesulfurisation, esterifications and etherification. Various commercial methods for packing heterogeneous catalyst in columns are now available. The systems comprise amongst others: multiple catalyst systems, gas and liquid internal recycle traffic over these catalyst systems, separation, mass flow, and enthalpy exchange. These are
References: [1] L. Mucha, ABB-LUMUS/CDTECH, Email to author, 20 March 2007. [2] M.E. Loescher, Email to author, 25 July 2005. [3] K.L. Rock, CDTECH, “Selective hydrogenation of MAPD via catalytic distillation”, in: ERTC Petrochemical Conference, Amsterdam, February 20–22, 2002. [4] J. Gerla, S. Chemtech, Reactive distillation, Emails to author, 26 July and 10 August 2005.