1 reply to this topic

[UOMChemicalEngineer]

Hi everyone,

 

I was wondering whether anybody could help me with university project work that I am currently doing.

 

We have been tasked with designing a plant to produce acrylic acid from glycerol. Initially, we had decided to use pure glycerol as our feedstock and we were therefore using Aspen Hysys (with the Wilson fluid package) to model our system.

 

The use of pure glycerol as a feedstock has since been rejected by our supervisors and we must therefore proceed from crude glycerol.

 

I am therefore trying to model the purification of crude glycerol to pure glycerol using Aspen Hysys. However, due to solids and an ionic mixture, I find that I am struggling to get Hysys to comply (or even to begin, modelling the methanol evaporator is fine and it converges but after that I am stuck).

 

The composition of the crude glycerol is as follows:

 

Crude Glycerol (120kmol/h, 25degreesC, 101.325kPa, pH = 5.4)

·         1mol% Methanol

·         86.7mol% Glycerol

·         9mol% Water

·         2.4mol% “Ash” (assumed to be NaCl, solid)

·         0.9mol% MONG (Matter Organic Non-Glycerol – assumed to be triglyceride, modelled as triolein)

 

Literature leads me to believe that the following steps for purification would be appropriate:

·         An Evaporator (To remove methanol from the stream)

·         A Neutralisation Tank (To neutralise the methanol-free stream)

·         A Centrifuge (To separate the ash solids from the mixture)

·         Another Evaporator/Distillation Column (To remove excess water)

·         An Ion-Exchange Column (To achieve 99.7wt% purity)

 

I believe that using Aspen Plus (V8.4) I should be able to model this process, however I have no experience with the program. I was wondering whether it would be possible to model this process solely in Hysys and if so whether I could receive some guidance.

 

Thanks in advance!!

Attached Files

•  CrudeGlycerolPurification.png   89.05KB   13 downloads

Edited by UOMChemicalEngineer, 17 February 2017 - 04:47 AM.

[CabezaGarcia]

Hi everyone,

 

I was wondering whether anybody could help me with university project work that I am currently doing.

 

We have been tasked with designing a plant to produce acrylic acid from glycerol. Initially, we had decided to use pure glycerol as our feedstock and we were therefore using Aspen Hysys (with the Wilson fluid package) to model our system.

 

The use of pure glycerol as a feedstock has since been rejected by our supervisors and we must therefore proceed from crude glycerol.

 

I am therefore trying to model the purification of crude glycerol to pure glycerol using Aspen Hysys. However, due to solids and an ionic mixture, I find that I am struggling to get Hysys to comply (or even to begin, modelling the methanol evaporator is fine and it converges but after that I am stuck).

 

The composition of the crude glycerol is as follows:

 

Crude Glycerol (120kmol/h, 25degreesC, 101.325kPa, pH = 5.4)

·         1mol% Methanol

·         86.7mol% Glycerol

·         9mol% Water

·         2.4mol% “Ash” (assumed to be NaCl, solid)

·         0.9mol% MONG (Matter Organic Non-Glycerol – assumed to be triglyceride, modelled as triolein)

 

Literature leads me to believe that the following steps for purification would be appropriate:

·         An Evaporator (To remove methanol from the stream)

·         A Neutralisation Tank (To neutralise the methanol-free stream)

·         A Centrifuge (To separate the ash solids from the mixture)

·         Another Evaporator/Distillation Column (To remove excess water)

·         An Ion-Exchange Column (To achieve 99.7wt% purity)

 

I believe that using Aspen Plus (V8.4) I should be able to model this process, however I have no experience with the program. I was wondering whether it would be possible to model this process solely in Hysys and if so whether I could receive some guidance.

 

Thanks in advance!!

Hi! How are you?

Mi name is Cristian, from Argentina. Some friends and I have a similar issue to the one you have. We need to model the glycerin refining process but we lack data and experience in the field. We have some information on the subject and we have advanced a general diagram in Microsoft Visio that we can share if you want.

We also need all the information we can get about the process and equipment

Edited by CabezaGarcia, 22 March 2017 - 07:11 PM.