DefinePK

Abstract

The monothetic, also known as one-factor-at-a-time, analysis of a reactive distillation process involving octene metathesis to produce heptene and nonene has been carried out in this work. ChemCAD, which is a process simulator, was employed to develop the model of the process while the equilibrium constant of the metathesis reaction occurring in the reaction section of the column was estimated with the aid of Aspen HYSYS via an equilibrium reactor modelling. The input variables considered as the operating factors of the process were reflux ratio, which was varied from 2 to 9, and reboiler duty, which was increased from 0.2 to 0.5 kJ/s with a step increment of 0.1 kJ/s, while the output variables were the mole fractions of heptene and nonene obtained from the top and the bottom sections of the column, respectively. The results obtained from the simulations carried out for the analysis showed that the metathesis reactive distillation process was affected by both the reflux ratio and the reboiler duty of the column. Also discovered from the simulations was that the increase in the reflux ratio made the mole fraction of heptene obtained from the top section of the column to approach one while that of the nonene product given from the bottom section of the column was decreasing. Moreover, it was discovered that increase in the reboiler duty could make the mole fraction of the nonene collected from the bottom section of the column to approach one whereas that of the top heptene was observed to be decreasing. Therefore, it has been revealed from the monothetic analysis of the metathesis reactive distillation process carried out in this study that the quality of the products obtained from the top and the bottom sections of the reactive distillation column were functions of the reflux ratio and the reboiler duty.