3 replies to this topic

[Pilargalizia]

Hello, I am a final-year Chemical Engineering student, and I am currently working on my thesis about an acetic acid production plant based on the Cativa process.

I am having some issues when trying to simulate the process, since I do not know how to properly define the dissolved solid catalyst in UniSim so that, in the flash separator, all of the liquid catalyst leaves through the bottom stream while the acetic acid leaves through the top stream.

Could anyone help me with this, or does anyone have this process simulated in UniSim, Aspen HYSYS, or any other process simulation software?
Pilargalizia04@gmail.com

Edited by Pilargalizia, Yesterday, 01:38 PM.

[breizh]

Hi,

Let you try Google AI to support your query.

Acetic Acid Process Plant Design | PDF

Breizh 

[Pilesar]

Most steady state process simulators seem to be designed primarily for vapor and liquid phases. When I wanted to track small amounts of solids in the material balance, I just wanted the solids to never be in the vapor phase. While the software may have some solid phase thermodynamics, it seemed much more complicated to use than I wanted to deal with because I just wanted the solids to separate cleanly. The simulator is a tool and I was its boss. My method was to model the solid component as the heaviest molecular weight liquid component I could find in the pure component library. That way, the thermodynamic method I needed for the vapor/liquid separation would automatically take care of never putting that component in the vapor phase. The component I used as my go-to solid substitute was cholesterol. Try adding cholesterol to your component list and renaming it "catalyst" to see if that works for you.

[breizh]

Agree with Pilesar.BTW this is the way AI (copilot) is answering your question.

Use of pseudo component with the highest boiling point.

Breizh