Design and Control of a p-Xylene Oxidation Process

Lili Tao, Zhihua Hu, Feng Qian

PII: S1004-9541(15)00340-7
DOI: doi: 10.1016/j.cjche.2015.09.009
Reference: CJCHE 398

To appear in:

Received date: 25 May 2015

Revised date: 17 July 2015
Accepted date: 17 July 2015

Please cite this article as: Lili Tao, Zhihua Hu, Feng Qian, Design and Control of a
p-Xylene Oxidation Process, (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.cjche.2015.09.009

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

Received 25 May 2015

Received in revised form 17 July 2015
Accepted 17 July 2015

Design and Control of a p-Xylene Oxidation Process*

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PX 氧化反应过程的设计与控制研究

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稿件编号(2015-0251)

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Lili TAO (陶莉莉) 1, ** , Zhihua HU (胡志华)1 and Feng QIAN (钱锋)2,**

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1
College of Engineering, Shanghai Second Polytechnic University, Shanghai 201209, China
2
Key Laboratory of Advanced Control and Optimization for Chemical Processes, Ministry of
Education, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China

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Abstract The p-xylene (PX) oxidation process is of great industrial importance because of the strong
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demand of the global polyester fiber. Steady-state model of the PX oxidation have been studied by

many researchers. In our previous work, a novel industrial p-xylene oxidation reactor model using the

free radical mechanism based kinetics has been developed. However, the disturbances such as
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production rate change, feed composition variability and reactor temperature changes widely exist in
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the industry process. In this paper, dynamic simulation of the PX oxidation reactor was designed by

Aspen Dynamics and used to develop effective plantwide control structure, which was capable of
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effectively handling the disturbances in the load and the temperature of the reactor. Step responses of
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the control structure to the disturbances were shown and served as the foundation of the smooth

operation and advanced control strategy of this process in our future work.
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Keywords p-Xylene oxidation, Dynamic simulation, Aspen Dynamics, Process design and control

1. Introduction

Polyester materials are present in everyday life mainly produced from

Terephthalic acid (TPA). Polyester can be produced to satisfy the requirements of the

various final products including polyester fibre, polyethylene terephthalate (PET)

bottle resin and polyester film [1]. Because of its wide application and the demands of

the current market, the production for the liquid-phase catalytic oxidation of p-xylene

* Supported by the Major State Basic Research Development Program of China (2012CB720500),
the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U1162202), the Shanghai Second Polytechnic
University Key Discipline Construction (4th term)-Control Theory & Control Engineering
( XXKPY1308), the Cultivation Program of Young Teachers in Colleges and Universities of
Shanghai (ZZegd14013) and the School Foundation of Shanghai Second Polytechnic University
(EGD14XQD02).
** To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: lltao@sspu.edu.cn, fqian@ecust.edu.cn

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to TPA is of great interest in industry. Modeling of p-xylene oxidation process has

vastly been studied in literature [2]. In our previous work [3], an industrial p-xylene

oxidation model on the basis of the free radical mechanism was developed. However,

steady-state model cannot describe the dynamics of the process when the disturbances

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such as the feed flow rate and the feed composition occur.

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There have been many efforts to investigate the dynamics and control of process

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[4]. Luyben [5] studied the cumene process and developed the economically optimum

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design and a plantwide control structure of the process. Luyben [6] also proposed the

economically optimum design of a methanol reactor and gave a plantwide control

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structure of this process. Muhammad [7] provided a control structure that used two

temperatures to maintain the purities of the product streams of an olefin methesis

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reactive distillation column. Ashok [8] compared the economic optimum design and

plantwide control of two alternative processes for cumene manufacture. Huang [9]
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described the process design flow sheets both with and without tiny amounts of
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reactant p-xylene or m-xylene. To the best of our knowledge, a design and control

study for the PX oxidation reaction process has not been performed in the open
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literature.
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In this paper, a p-xylene (PX) oxidation reaction process will be thoroughly

studied. The case used in this study is a PX oxidation plant in China designed
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according to Mitsui technology. Usually, most of TPA is produced by the liquid-phase

catalytic oxidation of PX in the temperature range of 150 to 210 °C with cobalt acetate,

manganese acetate and bromide as catalysts, acetic acid as solvent and air as oxygen

source [10]. It has been proved [11] that the quality and yield of TPA depend on the

operating conditions, such as concentrations of feed compounds and temperatures of

the reactor. A small change of the operating conditions led to a more pronounced

change of the final product TPA. Therefore, optimized operating variables were

obtained to target the economical performance of the process directly. Then, dynamic

simulation of the PX oxidation reactor was designed by Aspen Dynamics and the

overall control strategy of this system will be proposed to hold reactor temperature and

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product specification in spite of feed rate and other disturbances.

The organization of this paper is as follows. Section 2 will describe the PX

oxidation reaction process and the kinetics of the oxidation reaction. Section 3 will

obtain the optimum operating variables of the process. Section 4 will develop the

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dynamic simulation of the process and give the step responses of several disturbances.

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Some concluding remarks and suggestions will be given in Section 5.

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2. Process Studied

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The PX oxidation process is described in our previous work [12]. The basic

flowsheet is shown in Fig. 1.

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Condenser

Off-gas

Acetic Acid
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p-xylene
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Reflux Drum
Reactor
catalysts

Outflow
P

Reflux Pump
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Acetic Acid
Outflow
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Air

Figure 1 Simplified flow-sheet of PX oxidation process

Reaction Kinetics

As a typical free radical chain reaction, the overall process of the oxidation

reaction involves three steps [1]: chain initiation, chain propagation and chain

termination. In our previous work, the main reactions were only considered and the

side reactions were neglected in the kinetic model. PX oxidation reaction involves

many side reactions, among which acetic acid combustion and PX combustion are the

most important. As is known, the main products of the side reactions are COx (CO and

CO2). Recently, a kinetic model of COx formation on the basis of the free radical

reaction mechanism was established by Sun et al. [13]. The detailed description of the

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reaction paths for COx formation can be referred to literature. The extension kinetic

model based on the free radical reaction mechanism can be summarized as follows:

rPX  k1CPX  k2C[O]CPX (1)

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r[O]PX  k1CPX  k2C[O]CPX  BC[O]PX  k6C[O]PX C[O] (2)

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rTALD  BC[O]PX  k1CTALD  k3C[O]CTALD (3)

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r[O]TALD  k1CTALD  k3C[O]CTALD  BC[O]TALD  k6C[O]TALD C[O] (4)

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rp-TA  BC[O]TALD  k1Cp-TA  k4C[O]Cp-TA (5)

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r[O]p-TA  k1Cp-TA  k4C[O]Cp-TA  BC[O]p-TA  k6C[O]p-TA C[O] (6)

r4-CBA  BC[O]p-TA  k1C4-CBA  k5C[O]C4-CBA (7)

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r[O]4-CBA  k1C4-CBA  k5C[O]C4-CBA  BC[O]4-CBA  k6C[O]4-CBA C[O] (8)

rTPA  BC[O]4-CBA (9)

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r•OOCH2COOH  ks1  ks4C.OOCH2COOHCRH (10)

rAr  ks1CAr-COOH  ks6CAr   ks7CAr (11)

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rHOOCH2COOH  ks4COOCH2COOHCRH 
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(12)
ks3CHOOCH2COOH  ks5CHOOCH 2COOH
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rCO2  ks1CAr-COOH  ks6CAr  7  ks5CHOOCH2COOH (13)

rCO  ks3CHOOCH2COOH  ks7CAr   7 (14)

where

C[O]  C[O]PX  C[O]TALD  C[O]p-TA  C[O]4-CBA

B  k2CPX  k3CTALD  k4Cp-TA  k5C4-CBA (15)

t  0 , COOCH2COOH  0 , CHOOCH2COOH  0 , CCO  0 , CCO2  0 (16)

As discussed previously [3], the rate constants obtained by experimental data did

not fit the industrial process well, and thus need to be revised. In our previous work,

the objective was to minimize the deviation of the calculated concentrations and the

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industrial concentrations of liquid reactants and products (i.e. PX, TALD, p-TA, 4-CBA

and TPA), ignoring the side reaction products. Since the side reactions are introduced,

13 parameters are involved in the kinetic model. The ks3 to ks7 are independent of

catalyst concentrations which should be kept constant. Although ks1 and ks2 are the two

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adjustable parameters, they change a little even when the reaction conditions change

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greatly. Since the operating conditions of the industrial PX oxidation process are

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relatively stable, It is assumed that ks1 and ks2 are maintained at a fixed value. The

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operating conditions are chosen as the initial values. 26 variables for optimization are

the correction coefficients σi1 and σi2 (i=1, 2 to 13). Accordingly, optimization vector X

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can be formulated as:

X  f ( 11 ,  12 ,  21 ,  22 ,  31 ,  32 ,  41 ,  42 ,  51 ,  52 ,  61 ,  62 ,  71 ,
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(17)
 72 ,  81 ,  82 ,  91 ,  92 ,  101,  102 ,  111,  112 ,  121,  122 ,  131,  132 )

Since the side reactions are considered, the amount of COx in the off-gas is
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calculated and deviation is defined as:

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2
 Cˆ  j   C  j  
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F j    i  j  i  (18)
i 1  Ci 
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 j  j
where Ĉi (i=1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) and Ci (i=1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) are the jth calculated
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concentrations and industrial concentrations of PX, TALD, p-TA, 4-CBA, TPA, CO2
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and CO, respectively.

Mathematically the optimization problem can be written as:

2
n2  Cˆ i j   Ci j  
n2 7
min E   E j     (19)
 C  j
j 1 i 1 

j 1 i 

where the objective function E denotes the total deviation and n2 is the number of the

total sample.

Table 1 Calculated kinetic parameters

Parameter Model Optimized value

fbpnn(x1,x2,x3,x4,x5)
-1 bpnn
k1/min f (x1,x2,x3,x4,x5)
0.432+0.0835

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k2 /mol·kg-1·min-1 15879.45 9498.538

k3 /mol·kg-1·min-1 17088.896 918.3813

k4 (mol·kg-1·min-1 3275.478 678.5397

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k5 /mol·kg-1·min-1 9814.47 153.2102

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k6 /mol·kg-1·min-1 0.5436 0.295122

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ks1/min-1 10-3 0.00047

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ks2/mol·kg-1·min-1 4.4*10-3 0.002452

ks3/min-1 7.06 0.755328

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ks4/mol·kg-1·min-1 4.16 0.148525

ks5/min-1 0.16 0.57757

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ks6/min-1 7.13 3.470129

ks7/min-1 0.42 0.623891

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It can be seen from the calculated kinetic parameters in Table 1 that the side

reactions have a great influence on the main reactions. On the other hand, the side
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reactions are influenced by the main reactions. The reactor is simulated in Aspen Plus
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using the user defined model since the PX oxidation model based on the free radical
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mechanism cannot be written by built-in models provided by Aspen Plus software

selection. At the top of the reactor, there is a dehydration section used for separating the

acetic acid solvent and water. The heat of reaction can be utilized to remove the water

from the mixture of water and acetic acid to reduce the investment and operating costs.

And the high-purity acetic acid will return to the reactor to serve as the solvent.

3. Economic Optimization

The objective of optimization is supposed to reflect some economic criterion [14].

In industrial PX oxidation process, often the acetic acid and PX combustion loss is

minimized while constraining the quality specifications [15]. The key index of the

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product specifications corresponds to the concentration of 4-CBA in the outlet of the

reactor. The amount of acetic acid combustion loss in the reactor Lconsume
HAC (Kg·t-1 TPA)

can be given as:

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xH A C w H A C
mg a s x 
Cx O 
LcHoAn Cs u m e 100 1000

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CO x
(20)
mHAC
2  mTPA
100

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where mgas (FT3.h-1) is the molar flowrate of the off-gas, xCO x is the molar fraction of

COx in the off-gas, xHAC (%) is the percentage of COx generated by acetic acid

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CO
combustion in total amount of COx of the off-gas, mHACx (%) is the percentage of COx

generated by acetic acid combustion in all products produced from acetic acid
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combustion, mTPA (t.h-1) is the mass flowrate of the product TPA, wHAC (g.mol-1) is the

CO
molecular weight of acetic acid, and xHAC and mHACx can be obtained from literature
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which are 61% and 75%, respectively.

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consume
The amount of p-xylene combustion loss in the reactor LPX (Kg.(T.TPA)-1)
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can be expressed as:

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xPX wHAC
mgas  xCO x  
Lconsume  100 1000 (21)
PX
mCO x
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8  PX  mTPA
100

where xPX (%) is the percentage of COx generated by p-xylene combustion in total

CO
amount of COx of the off-gas, mPX x (%) is the percentage of COx generated by

p-xylene combustion in all products produced from p-xylene combustion, and xPX and

CO x
mPX can be obtained from literature which are 61% and 75%, respectively.

In literature, the amount of the COx was obtained by a neural network and the

effect of the side reactions was neglected [16, 17]. This optimization strategy only

takes the content of 4-CBA produced from the main reaction as the constraints of the

neural network model. So the model is empirical and cannot be applied at other

conditions. The optimization of operating conditions performed without considering

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the side reactions are depicted in Fig. 2. The new model takes into account the

influence of the side reactions and is proved to be more reliable. The optimization

procedure is shown graphically in the logic flow diagram in Fig. 3.

In our previous paper [12, 18], a modified self-adaptive immune genetic algorithm

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(MSIGA), in which immune concepts were employed to determine the mutation

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parameters [14], was proposed and proved to be efficient and effective for engineering

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applications. Thus, the MSIGA was applied to obtain the optimal operating conditions

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from an economical point of view. The detailed formulation of the optimization

problem was given previously. In the industrial practice of the PX oxidation process,

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the population size N of MAIGA was set to be 50 and memory ratio α was 0.2. The

maximum iteration number was set as 100. The operation conditions could be changed
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or new terms could be added with different market price of PX and HAC in order to

gain maximum economic benefits. It was assumed that the price of PX and HAC was
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12500 and 7200 Yuan.ton-1, respectively. For the optimization process, the lower and
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upper bounds, as well as the initial conditions were summarized in Table 2. The lower

and upper bounds were adopted based on the design limit and the initial conditions
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were set to the operating condition used in industry. In industrial PX process the
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operational conditions were given in Table 2. Table 3 gave the economical performance

of the process before and after the optimization process. The combustion loss of acetic
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acid was reduced by 3.14% and that of p-xylene combustion loss by 1.54%. As a

consequence, the minimum of cost loss decreased to 518.11 Yuan.Kg-1. The total loss

caused by combustion of acetic acid and p-xylene decreased 16.8 Yuan.Kg-1. He et al.

[19] proposed a fuzzy adaptive immune algorithm (FAIA) to obtain the optimal

conditions of p-xylene oxidation reaction process with a BPNN combustion loss model,

and the total loss decreased 15.72 RMB.kg-1. Therefore, the proposed approach of the

process in this work can not only contribute to a much better economical performance

of the process but also serve as technical support for industrial PX oxidation process.

Table 2 Optimal operating conditions and bounds of the industrial PX oxidation reactor

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Operation conditions Initial values LB UB Final values

Concentration of Co /% 0.0928 0.06 0.1 0.0909

Concentration of Mn /% 0.0382 0.03 0.07 0.0355

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Concentration of Br /% 0.1390 0.09 0.17 0.1306

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Temperature of the reactor
191.87 185 195 190.36
/°C

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HAC/PX ratio 4.1933 4 5 4.1449

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Residence time of the third
81 75 85 75
reactor /min

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Table 3 Production performance specifications comparison before and after optimization

Economical Combustion loss Combustion loss

Minimum of cost loss
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performance of of acetic acid of PX
/RMB.kg-1
the process /kg.(t TPA)-1 /kg.(t TPA)-1
Initial values 46.065 16.26 534.91
Final values 44.618 15.749 518.11
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Variation -1.447 -0.251 -16.8

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Start
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Set initial input operation

conditions
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Use intelligent algorithms to minimize

the cost loss
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p-Xylene oxidation model of A neural network model of the

the main reactions amount of COx

Calculate the concentrations of 4- Obtain the acetic acid combustion loss and
CBA of the model p-xylene combustion loss

No
Check if the concentrations of 4-CBA
met within a reasonable tolerance

Yes
No
Check if a termination criterion is met

Yes

Stop

Figure 2 Flow chart of the optimization procedure without the side reactions

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Start

Set initial input operation

conditions

Use intelligent algorithms to

minimize the cost loss

p-Xylene oxidation model including

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the main reactions and side reactions

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Calculate the concentrations of
4-CBA of the model

No
Check if the concentrations of 4-CBA
met within a reasonable tolerance
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Yes Calculate the amount of COx to
obtain the acetic acid combustion
loss and p-xylene combustion loss

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No
Check if a termination criterion is met

Yes

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Stop

Figure 3 Flow chart of the optimization procedure with the side reactions
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4. Dynamic Simulation and Control

Figure 4 shows the flowsheet of the process with the initial conditions. PX, acetic
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acid solvent, air and catalysts (cobalt acetate, manganese acetate and bromide) are
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continuously fed into the reactor. The feed flow rate of the PX is set at 24575 kg.h-1.

The mixture of the solvent, the catalysts and water fed to the reactor is 112079 kg.h-1.
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The liquid feeds are combined with a mixer and fed to the reactor at 25 °C. And the air

is fed into the reactor at 45 °C and 1.116 MPa. The off-gas leaves the condenser at
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40 °C. The liquid water and acetic acid flow rate from the condenser is 15035 kg.h-1.

The TA product flow rate of the reactor is about 143120 kg.h-1.

The steady-state Aspen Plus model shown in Fig. 1 does not include pumps and

control valves. The first step in studying dynamics using a pressure-driven dynamic

simulation is to add these items and to determine the volumes of all vessels. The units

with dynamics include the reactor and the condenser. The size and conditions of the

reactor based on a real industrial PX oxidation process are given in Table 4.

Table 4 Size and conditions of the reactor

Parameter Value
diameter 7.4 m
length 18 m
pressure 1114 kPa

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residence time 79 min

temperature 186.28 °C

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PX feed WG
24575kg/h r Gas
25°C 11.16bar O2 2.9%

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FC1101 COx 1.84%

40°C

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HAC and catalyst feed
CO 56k g/hr Ou tfl ow
MN 30kg/h r Total 15035 kg/hr

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BR 100k g/hr
HAC 101670kg/hr
H2O 10223k g/hr 11.16bar 11.14 bar
FC1102 186.28 °C
OUTFLOW

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Air feed TA produ ct
114324 kg/h r
45 °C Total 143120kg/hr
Mol e fraction Reactor TA 36462kg/hr
N2 0.79 11.16bar 4CBA 124.5k g/hr
O2 0.21 p-TA 71.5kg/h r
FI1209
HAC 89409kg/hr
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Figure 4 PX oxidation process flowsheet
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P TE
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Figure 5 Control structure of the PX oxidation dynamic model

Figure 5 shows the plantwide control structure developed for this process using

process control methodology. Conventional PI controllers are used in all loops. The

various loops are listed below with their controlled and manipulated variables.

(1) The temperature of the reactor can be influenced by the inlet flowrate of the

liquid feeds (PX and HAC). Thus, the PX feed is flow controlled. Besides, the ratio of

HAC/PX is about 4.5 according to the industrial specifications. Total solvent(HAC,

catalysts and water ) is ratioed to the PX flowrate.

(2) The amount of air feed also greatly affects the reaction process [20], and thus

the inlet gas is flow controlled.

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(3) As is known, the reaction process is greatly affected by the reactor temperature.

If the feed disturbance is not very high, the reactor temperature is controlled by

manipulating the liquid water outflow separated from the condenser.

(4) Changing the outlet product flowrate of the reactor immediately affects the

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reactor level. Therefore, the reactor level is controlled by manipulating the outlet

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flowrate of the product.

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(5) The level in the condenser is controlled by manipulating the flowrate of liquid

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leaving the condenser.

Figure 6 shows the controller face plates from the Aspen Dynamics simulation.

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The effectiveness of this structure is demonstrated in Figs 7, 8 and 9 for several

disturbances.
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P TE
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Figure 6 Controller face plate of the PX oxidation process

(a) (b)

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T
R IP
(c) (d)

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MA
D

(e) (f)

Figure 7 Disturbances of 2% PX feed flow rate

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In Fig. 7 the set point of the PX feed flow controller is changed at time= 0.5 h.
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The solid lines are responses for a 2% increase and the dashed lines are for a 2%
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decrease. An increase in PX feed can enhance the reaction temperature. The reaction

temperature is immediately increased from 186.27 °C to 186.64 °C. The liquid water
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outflow must be reduced to hold the reactor temperature. It can be seen that the reactor

temperature is well-controlled. It is found from Fig. 7(c) that the increase in PX feed

results in a decrease of O2 concentration in the off-gas. The results of previous research

demonstrated the increase of PX feed can lower the COx content in the off-gas. But the

O2 content reduced more quickly, and thus the concentration of COx (1.905%) is

slightly higher than before (1.87%). With the slight increase of the O2 content, the

concentration of COx is gradually reduced to a steady state value (1.865%). Fig. 7(e)

shows that the reactor level can be rapidly increased from 10.97 m to 11.12 m due to

the increase of the PX feed. Then, it will be reduced to the initial steady value by the

reactor level controller. Fig. 7(f) gives response of the 4-CBA concentration in the

product for PX feed disturbances. It is obvious that the increase of PX feed leads to a

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dramatic increase in the reactor level, then the outlet product will increase by the

reactor level controller, and thus the content of TA and 4-CBA will increase

accordingly. Simultaneously, the increase of PX feed results in the higher reaction

temperature. Since the reaction rate from p-toluic acid (p-TA) to 4-CBA is slower than

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the rate from 4-CBA to TA, the concentration of 4-CBA will increase at the beginning.

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Subsequently, the reactor temperature will be brought down by the temperature

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controller, and thus concentration of 4-CBA will drop to a steady value (about

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0.355%).

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MA
D
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(a) (b)
P
CE
AC

(c) (d)

(e) (f)

Figure 8 2% step change of the air feed

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Figure 8 gives responses for disturbances in the air feed. The solid lines are

responses for a 2% increase, and the dashed lines are for a 2% decrease. The control

structure handles this disturbance well. The reactor temperature will change from

186.28 °C to 185.45 °C and drop to the first value by the temperature controller.

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Meanwhile, the concentration of O2 in the off-gas will gradually grow from 2.9% to

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4.5%. With respect to COx, more air feed will result in the lower concentration of COx

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in the off-gas at the beginning, and then the concentration of COx gradually decreases

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to 1.85%. Besides, more air feed will lead to the decrease of 4-CBA concentration. The

response of the reactor level is shown in Fig. 8(f).

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MA
D
P TE

(a) (b)
CE
AC

(c) (d)

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T
R IP
(e)

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Figure 9 Disturbances of reactor temperature
The final disturbance is a change in the set point of the reactor temperature

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controller. Fig. 9 gives responses for a change from 186.28 °C to 188.08 °C (solid lines)

and for a change from 186.28 °C to 184.5 °C (dashed lines). As expected, increasing
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reactor temperature will decrease the concentration of 4-CBA. There is little change of

the O2 concentration in the off-gas for an increase in reactor temperature. The reactor

liquid level response and the COx concentration response are shown in Figs. 9(d) and
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9(e), respectively.
P TE

5 Conclusions
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The design and control of a p-xylene oxidation process have been studied in this

paper. The extension kinetic model based on the free radical mechanism was
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introduced. Since the rate constants obtained by experimental data did not fit the

industrial process well, 13 parameters involved in the kinetic model were revised. Then,

the MSIGA was applied to obtain the optimal operating conditions of this process from

an economical point of view. Steady-state model cannot describe the dynamics of the

process when the disturbances such as the feed flow rate and the feed composition

occur. Dynamic simulation of the PX oxidation reactor was designed by Aspen

Dynamics and used to develop the plantwide control structure. Effective dynamic

control of the p-xylene oxidation process was achieved by the use of conventional

controllers and a control structure. This developed dynamic model associated with

industrial control structures can provide operating guidance on the smooth operation

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and serve as foundation for further advanced control strategy development in our future

work.

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Graphic Abstract

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Control structure of the PX oxidation dynamic model

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In this paper, dynamic simulation of the PX oxidation reactor was designed by Aspen Dynamics
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and used to develop effective plantwide control structure, which was capable of effectively handling

the disturbances in the load and the temperature of the reactor. Step responses of the control structure

to the disturbances were shown and served as the foundation of the smooth operation and advanced
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control strategy of this process in our future work.

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