Steady State Analysis of Reactive Distillation Using Homotopy Continuation

Reactive Distillation: Control Structure and Process Design for Robustness

“…The methyl acetate RD column is designed to produce 95% pure methyl acetate distillate. The 7/18/10 design configuration reported by Singh et al (2005) is studied here. Both the columns are operated neat with stoichiometric feeds.…”

“…The 7/18/10 methyl acetate RD column design is studied (Singh et al, 2005). The steady state variation of reaction conversion with respect to reboiler duty at a fixed reflux ratio and a fixed reflux rate is shown in Figure 5.…”

Decentralized control of a kinetically controlled ideal reactive distillation column

“…Singh et al, 2005;Jacobs and Krishna, 1993;Mohl et al, 1999) and non-monotonic temperature profiles, unlike typical ordinary distillation systems. The high nonlinearity coupled with fewer valves for regulating both the reaction and the separation makes the design of an effective control system challenging.…”

On the multiple solutions of the reactive distillation column for production of fuel ethers

“…These variables include the reflux ratio, reboiler duty, and feed flow, among others. On the other hand, the output variables can be also controlled or used to describe the process conditions, e.g., the stage temperatures and compositions [24]. Both input and output multiplicities are relevant and important because of they may impose control and operation problems [25][26][27].…”

“…Therefore, the controlled system can respond differently to similar changes in manipulation depending on the history of the system [25]. It is convenient to remark that the presence of input and output multiplicities is caused by the nonlinearity of the system [24,27]. So, these multiple solutions can be eliminated by placing constraints on the manipulated variables, by increasing the number of controlled variables and by a proper choice of the operating policy of the system, i.e., the selection of controlled variables [25,27].…”