HU Song, LI Jinlong, LI Mujin, YANG Weisheng. Extractive refining process for production of propylene oxide with high purification[J]. CIESC Journal, 2019, 70(2): 670-677
HU Song, LI Jinlong, LI Mujin, YANG Weisheng. Extractive refining process for production of propylene oxide with high purification[J]. CIESC Journal, 2019, 70(2): 670-677DOI: 10.11949/j.issn.0438-1157.20181052.
Extractive refining process for production of propylene oxide with high purification
Crude propylene oxide (PO) produced from propylene epoxidation contains contaminations such as acetaldehyde
methanol
methyl formate
water and so on. It is difficult to remove them by using simple distillation because the relative volatilities of these components to PO are close to 1. Meanwhile
the PO is easy to react with water and 1
2-propanediol (PG) that will affect the extractive efficiency is then produced. Therefore
a process flowsheet combined extractive distillation and liquid-liquid extraction is proposed here to effectively remove these contaminations and improve PO product yield
in which the PO hydrolysis reaction (non-catalytic reactive distillation) and the processes of water washing for PO recover and side-drawing for the removal of PG are considered. The whole process is then simulated by using process simulation software Aspen Plus
in which the NRTL thermodynamic model is employed to character the thermodynamic properties. The effects of major design parameters of the separation process
such as the solvent ratio
the theoretical stage number of extractive distillation column
the location of feed
and the temperature of solvent
are investigated. The results show that the process is reasonable
reliable
and economical superior to existing processes
which can guide industrial process design and operation optimization.
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