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DWSIM Design Report For Extractive Distillation Separation of Methanol

This document summarizes a simulation of an extractive distillation column using DWSIM software to separate a methanol-dimethyl carbonate azeotrope mixture using aniline as the separating agent. The extractive distillation column was modeled as having 32 stages and a reflux ratio of 10. Simulation results showed aniline to be an effective entrainer for enhancing the relative volatility between methanol and dimethyl carbonate to allow their separation, with methanol recovered overhead and dimethyl carbonate recovered bottoms along with the aniline entrainer in a second column.

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Chisom Chuba
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419 views

DWSIM Design Report For Extractive Distillation Separation of Methanol

This document summarizes a simulation of an extractive distillation column using DWSIM software to separate a methanol-dimethyl carbonate azeotrope mixture using aniline as the separating agent. The extractive distillation column was modeled as having 32 stages and a reflux ratio of 10. Simulation results showed aniline to be an effective entrainer for enhancing the relative volatility between methanol and dimethyl carbonate to allow their separation, with methanol recovered overhead and dimethyl carbonate recovered bottoms along with the aniline entrainer in a second column.

Uploaded by

Chisom Chuba
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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DWSIM Design Report for Extractive Distillation

separation of Methanol-Dimethyl Carbonate mixture


using Aniline

Abstract:
In this work, an extractive distillation column was simulated with the DWSIM software
platform, using UNIQUAC thermodynamic package to investigate the separation of Dimethyl
carbonate-methanol azeotrope mixture composition with aniline serving as the separating
agent. Aniline is found to be a very effective entrainer to enhance the relative
volatility between methanol and dimethyl carbonate. The extractive distillation column
compromises of 32 stages and a reflux ratio of 10

Background:
The binary mixture of Dimethyl-carbonate and Methanol form an azeotrope at 63.73 degrees
Celsius(336.73K) as evidence of the vapour liquid diagram in Fig 1. The implication of an
azeotrope is the equal distribution of species in the vapor and liquid phase. Therefore,
conventional distillation is not feasible in the separation of this mixture. Extractive
distillation is another way to separate an azeotrope. In this method, a third component (heavy
entrainer) is added into the system. The entrainer acts to enhance the relative volatility of the
original two components so that one original component can go overhead in the extractive
distillation column and the other component will go with the heavy entrainer to the bottom of
the column. A second entrainer recovery column is used to purify entrainer and recover the
Dimethyl carbonate. This entrainer is then recycled back to the extractive distillation column.
Feasible candidate choice are phenol and Aniline, but Aniline is found to be a much suitable
entrainer for DMC-MEOH separation. Another method is called pressure-swing distillation.
However Wang et al studied pressure-swing distillation for the methanol−DMC azeotrope
and found out that this separation method is not more economical than extractive distillation.

Methanol-Dimethyl carbonate
P= 101.3 Kpa
365

360

355

350
Temperature

345

340

335

330

325

320
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
Mole Fraction/Methanol

FIG 1: T x-y Diagram for Methanol-DMC

FIG 2 LIQUID PHASE COMPOSITION PROFILES


FIG 3 VAPOUR PHASE COMPOSITION PROFILES

Figure 3 shows the variation of vapour phase composition of all the components, along the
column height. The concentrations are shown in mole fractions. Figure 3 shows an
increasing concentration of methanol present in the vapour phase and a decreasing
concentration of DMC. If the azeotrope still persists, then DMC will concurrently increase
alongside methanol in vapour composition. The aniline remains as a liquid throughout the
column as can be seen by its non-existence in the vapour phase in the profile.

FLOWSHEET:
The UNIQUAC Thermodynamic package was chosen as this is recommenced for
highly non-ideal chemical system. This process contains two column. The first is the
extractive distillation column and the second an entrainer recovery column. The azeotropic
mixture with flowrate 28414kg/h and mass composition of 0.814 DMC-0.185 MeoH is fed
into the extractive distillation at the 27th stage while the aniline solvent is fed at the 5th stage.
Its presence on the 5th stage near the top of the column is to ensure significant concentration
in the liquid phase on all trays below. The solvent to feed ratio was set at 0.883. The top
composition and bottom of methanol in the extractive distillation column was set at 0.99 and
0.01while the top and bottom composition of aniline was set at 0.01 and 0.99. Both columns
were operated at constant pressure and pressure drop is neglected. Methanol with 99 percent
purity is recovered in the ED column, DMC with 99 percent purity is produced in the Solvent
recovery column and aniline is recycled back to the ED column with a pure aniline makeup
stream to make up for solvent loss.

Fig 2 DWSIM Flowsheet for Extractive distillation of Methanol-Dimethyl carbonate

Results:

Below displayed are the stream-wise results from the flowsheet

RERENCES

1 Kai-Yi Hsu, Yuan-Chang Hsiao, and I-Lung Chien, 2010 Design and Control of Dimethyl
Carbonate-Methanol Separation via Extractive Distillation in the Dimethyl Carbonate
Reactive-Distillation Process, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2010, 49, 735–749.

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