Publication Date:
2013-10-30
Description:
The introduction of heat in stages combined with a reboiler as a distillation control strategy is proposed aiming to reduce the transition time when a feed composition disturbance occurs. This is the most severe type of perturbation and results in long transition times which are economically undesirable. Experiments were carried out in a pilot distillation column with ethanol and water for testing two different control strategies: conventional, i.e., using both last stage and reboiler temperature controllers, and distributed, i.e., conventional strategy plus stage temperature controllers. The results with this operational approach indicated a significant reduction in the time required for the column to stabilize when compared with the conventional approach. The proposed strategy proved to be a viable alternative, enabling faster dynamics and smaller volumes to be processed outside the predefined quality parameters. A new strategy to improve operation profitability by reducing the transition time in a distillation column is presented. The conventional control system was compared with a distributed strategy that combines reboiler and intermediate temperature control loop. Reductions of ∼ 20 % in time were achieved to minimize the effect of disturbances in the feed composition.
Print ISSN:
0930-7516
Electronic ISSN:
1521-4125
Topics:
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Process Engineering, Biotechnology, Nutrition Technology
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