2018 AIChE Annual Meeting

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Control of Non-Key Compositional Bulges in Industrial Distillation Unit Operations
Udugama, Isuru A.; Taube, Michael A. ; Gernaey, Krist V.
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2018
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Udugama, I. A., Taube, M. A., & Gernaey, K. V. (2018). Control of Non-Key Compositional Bulges in Industrial
Distillation Unit Operations. Abstract from 2018 AIChE Annual Meeting , Pittsburgh, United States.
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20/11/2018 2018 AIChE Annual Meeting
Control of Non-Key Compositional Bulges in

Industrial Distillation Unit Operations
Tuesday, October 30, 2018 8:25 AM - 8:50 AM David L. Lawrence Convention Center - 301
Abstract
In modern chemical plants distillation units are increasingly put under pressure with the requirement to achieve
greater throughput while ensuring higher product purities. Most of these distillation units also contain with multi-
component feed streams and often has demanding high purity requirements both at the distillate and bottoms
streams. These tight product and bottoms purity specifications together with the multi-component nature of the
feed streams can result in the accumulation of non-key components in the distillation columns. This is
particularly an issue when the feed stream to the column consists of both polar and non-polar components,
which can create polar and non-polar regions with the column. These regions can potentially “trap” the non-key
component in the middle of the distillation column between the polar and non-polar regions of the column. From
a design point of view, this accumulation of non-key components is managed by introducing a side draw where
the accumulated non-key middle boiling components can be extracted to maintain steady state operations.
However, from a process control point of view managing this accumulation and maintaining a steady state
operation can be challenging, and requires a sound understanding of process fundamentals, process dynamics
and control. This work will employ three industrial case studies on high purity methanol distillation, Propylene
Oxide/ Ethyl Benzene separation and C3/C4 as the basis to identify the practical difficulties faced in industrial
operations when managing the on specification operation of these type of distillation units. To this end, the
shortfalls in employing classical measurement techniques such as temperature measurements and the
inadequacies of classical distillation control configuration in operating these columns would be discussed. This
https://aiche.confex.com/aiche/2018/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/533198 1/3
will be followed by the historical reasons behind the use of these measurement techniques and control structures
would be discussed followed by a discussion on the relevance of these reasons with the recent advances made
in both process monitoring and control domains. This work will finally present alternative process control
schemes to the standard classical distillation control configurations that also takes advantage of the recent
advances in measurements techniques.
Authors
Isuru A. Udugama
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Michael A. Taube
S&D Consulting LLC
Krist V. Gernaey
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dk on: Jan 23, 2024

Control of Non-Key Compositional Bulges in Industrial Distillation Unit Operations

Udugama, Isuru A.; Taube, Michael A. ; Gernaey, Krist V.

Link back to DTU Orbit

Control of Non-Key Compositional Bulges in

Distillation Processes Fundamentals, Developments, and Applications I ›

Distillation and Absorption ›

Molecular Tracking: An Alternative Computer-Aided Concept for Multi-Component Distillation Column

Implementation of a Control Strategy for a Multitasking Reactive Distillation Column with an

Understanding Distillation Curves and Pseudocomponents

Process Intensification, a Promising Approach in Separating a Ternary System Using Distillation to

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