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Stacked Column

This document describes a process to separate xylene isomers using stacked distillation columns. Due to the thermal instability of xylene isomers, pressure reduction is required for separation. A stacked column configuration is proposed using 3 columns in series to maintain temperatures between 350-320°C. An equimolar mixture of ortho- and meta-xylene is separated into 97.6% pure meta-xylene in the top product of the upper column and 95% pure ortho-xylene in the bottom product of the lower column. The stacked column configuration allows for more efficient separation while maintaining safe operating temperatures and pressures.

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61 views2 pages

Stacked Column

This document describes a process to separate xylene isomers using stacked distillation columns. Due to the thermal instability of xylene isomers, pressure reduction is required for separation. A stacked column configuration is proposed using 3 columns in series to maintain temperatures between 350-320°C. An equimolar mixture of ortho- and meta-xylene is separated into 97.6% pure meta-xylene in the top product of the upper column and 95% pure ortho-xylene in the bottom product of the lower column. The stacked column configuration allows for more efficient separation while maintaining safe operating temperatures and pressures.

Uploaded by

Ingrid Contreras
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Separation of Xylene Isomers using Stacked Columns

Mohik Modi
Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat
([email protected])

Introduction
Thermal instability of a compound is an important factor to decide the temperature and
pressure conditions of the column for separation. When a compound is unstable at certain
temperature and tends to degrade before its boiling point, pressure reduction is necessary
for the phase separation. But pressures below 0.04 atm in reflux drum are not favorable and
less economical. So for the compounds with less thermal stability there should be some
other arrangement that should be made. Stacked Columns arrangement is one of those
arrangements.

Development of Flowsheet in DWSIM


All the specifications of the unit operations and thermodynamics are elaborated in the
literature. So I have used all the specifications as they are. Here, I have used Chao-Seader
model as the thermodynamic property package (same is used in literature).

For more details about the unit operation specifications and the stream properties, please
refer to the flowsheet and literature.

Purpose of Study
There are few systems whose separation becomes difficult due to thermal instability i.e.
there is always pressure and temperature constraints at top and bottom of the column. In
this flowsheet we have taken a similar example. Here we are feeding an equimolar mixture
of ortho and meta-xylene. This flowsheet helps us know what can we do in order to
maintain a certain temperature at top and bottom of the column. Here we use 3 columns in
series because of limited temperature bandwidth available to us i.e. here we have to
operate only between 350 – 320oC. This helps us more efficient use of energy but also on
the other hand significantly increases the capital cost.
Description of Flowsheet
A fresh feed of equimolar mixture of o-xylene and m-xylene is fed at 100 kmol/h to middle
column (reboiled absorber/stripper). At the same time, a stream from the upper column
and another stream from the lower column are fed to this column which gives top and
bottom product as 69 mol% and 36.8 mol% purity of m-xylene respectively. Vapor product
from the top is condensed and pumped to the bottom section of the upper column. Upper
column separates this stream into 97.6 mol% pure m-xylene as the top product. The bottom
product liquid is again sent to the top section of the middle column. The bottom product
from the middle column is sent to the top section of the lower column (reboiled
absorber/stripper) which gives 95 mol% o-xylene and rest m-xylene. The top product vapor
from the lower column is condensed and pumped to the bottom section of the middle
column. Note that in each column top pressure is maintained at 0.041 atm and bottom
pressure is at 0.11 atm. Here, low pressure is definitely required because of the thermally
instable nature and close boiling points of xylene isomers.

Result
Object Feed D1 B1 D3 B2 Pure m- Pure o- Unit
Xylene Xylene
Flow Rate 100 722.18 697.05 634.814 667.785 54.39 56.378 kmol/h
m-Xylene 0.5 0.6902 0.368 0.3962 0.667 0.9756 0.05 mol/mol
o-Xylene 0.5 0.3098 0.632 0.6038 0.333 0.0244 0.95 mol/mol

References

[1] William L. Luyben, Design and Control of Stacked Column Distillation System, (2014).

doi: 10.1021/ie501981f

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