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[eoscoupe]

Dear all ,

I am doing a process simulation of direct hydration of ethylene to produce ethanol using the Pro/2 software and I having problem with the destillation of the products. The effluent stream from the reactor consists of 3488.81 kg/hr of Water, 0.0232 kg/hr of Methane, 6.6555 kg/hr of Ethylene, 366.5242 kgl/hr of Ethanol and 29.5819 kg/hr of Diethylether at 67 bar and temperatur of 91.28 °C. The separation is supposed to take place in 2 columns with 20 stages each and where byproduct will be distilled overheard in the first column and ethanol in the second.

I have set the specification of the first column to have a reflux ratio of 3 and the bottom flow rate of 3500 kg/hr by assuming all water will be removed at the bottom. The feed stream is set at stage 10 and the column operates at 1 bar with total condenser. My target is to remove almost all byproducts and 99.8 percent yield of ethanol at the bottom of the column. The column didn't work. I might have set a wrong specification which i am not aware of.

I am not sure which pressure should i choose but i have read somewhere that a pressure between 15-25 should be employed for diethyether to be distilled off. Should i choose a condenser with subcooling? Or if i should cool the feed before entering the column?

Your help and guidance are sincerely appreciated. Thank you.