CH3804 Product & Process Design - ASPEN PLUS Example test

Date: April 24, 2018

Time: 13:00h – 16:00h

For this basic ASPEN PLUS process simulation test, we’ll consider the partial oxidation of
ethylene into ethylene oxide. For the sake of simplicity, the process complexity has been
reduced. Before you start building your simulation, read the whole description!

Ethylene oxide
Ethylene oxide (EO) is used primarily as a chemical intermediate in making ethylene glycol
and certain plastics. It is a major commodity chemical that is manufactured throughout the
world.

Ethylene oxide is produced by the catalytic oxidation of ethylene over a silver-containing

catalyst. A side reaction oxidizes ethylene to carbon dioxide and water.

C2H4 + 0.5 O2  C2H4O Γ1

C2H4 + 3 O2  2CO2 + 2H2O Γ2

where Γi is the extent of reaction of reaction i. The selectivity of these reactions is determined
by processing conditions. In the normal operating range for the catalyst, lower single-pass
conversion favors ethylene oxide production.

Process Description
Fresh ethylene and oxygen are combined with a recycle stream containing un-reacted
ethylene, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. The combined stream is heated and fed to an
isothermal reactor, operating at 250°C and 10 bar. The ethylene in the reactor feed must be
maintained at 10 mol% for satisfactory catalyst operation. The single pass conversion in the
reactor will be adjusted at 20% to optimize unit performance. All of the oxygen in the feed
reacts. At these conditions Γ1 / Γ2 will be 6.

The reactor effluent is cooled and sent to an absorber operating at 40°C. Essentially, all of the
ethylene oxide is absorbed. Water is fed to the absorber in a 100:1 water:EO mole ratio. The
water-EO mixture is distilled to obtain ethylene oxide product.

The gas stream leaving the absorber is recycled. A portion of the recycle stream is purged so
that excessive amounts of nitrogen and carbon dioxide do not build up in the system. The
remainder is compressed to meet the inlet pressure requirements.

Feeds
The feed ethylene is available at 50 bar and 25°C. Oxygen (99 mol% purity – remainder
assumed to be nitrogen) from a cryogenic plant is available at 15 bar and 25°C.

Product
The required EO production rate is 100 kmol/h ± 1 kmol/h. The purity of this product stream
needs to be min. 99.5 mole% EO.
Create a simulation in ASPEN PLUS that models the process described above. Use NRTL as
the thermodynamic property method. For your and our convenience, use the General with
Metric Units template, and make sure that the stream compositions in the resulting stream
report are given in mole fractions (Simulation > Setup > Report Options > Stream).

The simulation should fulfill the following requirements:

1. Your final simulation should contain a RADFRAC model.

2. The simulation should converge and yield results without errors.
3. For heat integration, you should introduce at least one countercurrent heat exchanger
model. You don’t have to do the pinch analysis with heat curves, but just take a
careful look at the stream temperatures and heater/cooler duties before you place and
specify your heat exchanger model.
4. The title of your simulation should be your full name (Simulation > Setup > Global).

Additional remarks about your simulation:

1. For the compressor, you can use the Compr model; Assume Isentropic compression.
2. For the absorber you can use the Sep2 model in order to simplify things and to be able
to make a perfect separation between gases and liquids. Use pure water at the same
(P,T) conditions as the absorber operates. Assume that all EO will be absorbed.
3. For heaters, coolers and heat exchangers assume 1 bar pressure drop.
4. The distillation column will operate at a condenser pressure of 3.5 bar and a column
pressure drop of 0.5 bar.

Before you start building, sketch a flow diagram and add all known values. Build your
simulation step-by-step. Save your work frequently under different names to prevent
losing your work when a crash occurs.

Note that for the real test you need to save your final file as Aspen Plus Backup file
(your-name.bkp) and upload this file on Brightspace to receive your mark. Although
uploading is not required now, it is advice to save a Backup file and try to find it back (open it
from your explorer) so you know how to do this.

Good Luck!