Process Selection

Overall

A brief introduction to the details of the process chosen which is production of ethylene
from ethanol can be found in the above figure. In the sections immediately following, each item
listed will be defined in more detail. Additionally, in Section X, the exact specifications for each
process unit are given. A 1MM gallon feed storage tank starts the process. A tank of this size
will carry a supply of ethanol for one month. The feed is then pumped through a series of three
adiabatic reactors to a high pressure, vaporised, and passed through. It is paired with a
recycling stream only after exiting the second reactor. The reaction products are sent to a
polymer grade level of 99.96 percent through a separation train designed to purify the ethylene
product. The stream of the ethylene product is sent directly into the barge of the client or, if
necessary, into one of the two available on-site spherical storage tanks. In 18 hours, a facility
running at this capacity is capable of filling a 3000 tonne barge.
Process Goals
This project is based on using ethanol dehydration as an alternative to cracking for
ethylene output. This study details a plant that generates 99.96 percent pure ethylene per year
from around 2.19MM tonnes of 95 percent ethanol, along with a detailed economic analysis of
1MM tonnes per year. As the basis for the plant design, US Patent 4,396,789 was used, with
some modifications and optimised design decisions put in place.

Reaction
The dehydration reaction of ethanol to yield ethylene is shown below.

C2H5OH  H2O + C2H4

This reaction has a normal reaction heat (ΔH RXN) of approximately 401BTU / lb and is
zero-order and endothermic. Moreover, under normal temperature and pressure (298 K and
1atm), the reaction does not proceed to completion and exhibits an equilibrium that favours the
formation of ethanol.

In order to shift the equilibrium towards product formation and effectively produce
ethylene with a high conversion, a high temperature reactor operating at 750 ° F is required. In
addition, the reaction to γ-Alumina creates a variety of by-products to be extracted by the train of
separation. In approximate order of decreasing prevalence, the side reactions producing these
by-products are listed.
2C2H5OH  H2O + (C2H5)2O

C2H5OH  H2 + CH3COH

C2H5OH + 2H2  H2O +2 CH4

C2H5OH + H2O  2H2 + CH3COOH

C2H5OH + H2  H2O + C2H6

 Almost all of the by-products must be eliminated from the final product stream due to the
high purity of the ethylene product required (99.96 percent). The foundation of this plant design
is based on these two factors: a high temperature reactor and an intricately designed separation
train with product purity as the main objective.

Process description

Feed storage
A 95% solution of ethanol (5% water) feed is stored at atmospheric pressure and
temperature in a 1MM gallon, floating-roof storage tank. This volume is large enough to hold a
one month supply of ethanol and will be replenished by the ethanol plants located conveniently
in the area. The large volume of storage allows the plant to continue operation for one month
into the rainy season when Brazilian ethanol plants cease production and the price of ethanol
increases. In addition, it provides flexibility in scheduling feed replenishment and helps ensure
consistent production. In the future, it might be of value to install a direct piping route from one
of those plants; however, for now it is assumed that all feed ethanol arrives via railcars and
barges and is pumped directly into the storage tank.

Reactor section
Two parallel, three-stage pumps (P101 A / B and P102 A / B) are used to raise the feed
stream pressure to 603 psi. This very high pressure is used in the separation train to obviate
subsequent compression that would be required.

A shell and tube heat exchanger (HX101) that is used to preheat the feed to 572 oF is
then passed through the drain. The heated reactor effluent stream (S110) is used by HX101 to
reduce the energy needed to increase the temperature of the feed. To warm the feed stream the
rest of the way to the desired reactor inlet temperature of 752 oF, a furnace (F101) is required.
Furnace F101 would need approximately 60,000SCF / h of natural gas to supply sufficient
energy and increase the temperature.
 The overall reaction of ethanol to water, ethylene, diethyl-ether, methane and the other
by-products is followed by a sequence of three adiabatic, fixed-bed reactors. Reactors are
packed to capacity with a γ-alumina catalyst in the form of spherical pellets with a diameter of 1
cm.

The products reach HX101 as they leave the reactor, which decreases their temperature
o
to 179 F. As the separation train needs low temperatures, it is desirable to remove as much
heat as possible from this source.

Separation train

The separation section is intended to use as little equipment and as few utilities as
possible to get the ethylene product to 99.96 percent purity. As seen in the flow diagrams
above, it can be divided into approximately 4 sections: a flash section that removes the high
boiling components, a distillation section that removes most of the water from the process so
that the unreacted ethanol can be recycled without causing the volume of the reactor to grow
too big, a drying section that uses adsorption to extract any remaining water and ethanol, and a
cryogenic distillation section in which very low temperatures are used to finally achieve the
needed purity of ethylene.