PROCESS CONTROL REPORT

TASK 01

MULTIVARIABLE CONTROL OF
DISTILLATION COLUMN PROCESS

BY

MUHAMMAD RIZWAN KAMLEEN (Mtr.Nr. 230116)

MOHAMMAD ANAUS RABBANI (Mtr.Nr. 220525)
Introduction:
In nature most of the chemical compounds are in the form of raw mixture which are needed to be
purified. There are multiple ways with respect to product configuration but commonly in industries
Distillation Column process is preferred. While pursuing this procedure there are various
parameters which are needed to be considered and controlled. Below there will be a detailed
discussion for controlling of Distillation process.

Process Definition:
Distillation process is the process of separating a raw mixture into required products (see Fig 1). This
procedure is widely used in separation of chemical compound like Methanol, Ethanol and Naphtha
etc. They are used in Refineries, pharma and food industries.

Fig 1. process of distillation column

Methodology:
In this procedure the mixture which is required to be separated in desired end products according to
desired concentration. Raw mixture will be feed with F ( feed flow rate), zf (feed composition) into
the column or chamber by feeding area and that mixture will be boiled by the steam with Vb (steam
flow rate) coming from boiler. The mixture will partial vaporized and move towards the condenser
from the top of the column and rest left down in column which will further reuse for further steam
and for some by product. In condenser vapors will be partially compressed and rest will again be
transferred into column by reflux with a L (flow rate) for further boiling because of remaining
because of remaining volatile components. As in mixture every compound has their own boiling
point. This re-condensation will take place multiple time for the required concentrated product.

After condensation, final product can be extract from output valve with D (distilled flow rate) and Xd
(molar fraction of product). Furthermore, the remaining in the bottom of the column will be taken
out with B (boiler product flow) and Xb (molar fraction of B)

Control Design Aspect:

The first objective is to control the Xd molar fraction of the distilled output and Xb molar fraction of
bottom outlet along with the safety precautions of vapor flow rate V. Further taking the
consideration that liquid hold up Mb in the condenser and Md liquid hold up in bottom of column
must be at required level. The second object is to ensure the environmental safety by keeping the
steam into the column instead of any leakage or abnormal behavior. Thus, output flow of distilled
product D, flow of bottom liquid B, Xd and Xb are defined as Output variables and will be controlled
by Manipulated inputs reflux flow L and Steam flow rate Vb from Reflux valve and boiler
respectively. Now there will be Disturbance Input Flow F, composition zf of feed. This will alter the
operation parameters of column in terms of steam flow Vb from the boiler and V.

There are some Hard Constraint like Valve positions and Soft Constraints product stability and
reservoir levels.

Here P or PID controller can be used for the whole controlling depending upon the requirement.
System parameters:
All systems parameters are shown (Table 1) with their respective units to understand the
process more easily and using in the mathematical model.

VARIABLE DESCRIPTION UNITS

F Feed flow rate L/min
zf Feed composition %
Vb Steam flow rate Kg/min
V Vapor molar flow Kg/min
B Boiler liquid flow rate L/min
Xb Molar fraction of bottom liquid ratio
D Distilled liquid flow rate L/min
Xd Molar fraction of distilled liquid ratio
L Reflux flow rate L/min
Yi vapor Molar composition of light component %
Xi Liquid Molar composition of light component %

Table 1. System parameters

Mathematical Modelling:
We can easily understand the dynamics of the distillation column by the help of component mass
balance as shown in eq.1 and some other equations need to be used for the process. By using eq. 2
behavior of the light component can be analyzed .

𝑑𝐵𝑋𝑏 𝐵𝑑𝑋𝑏 𝑋𝑏 𝑑𝐵
𝑑𝑡
= 𝑑𝑡
+ 𝑑𝑡
= 𝐷𝑋𝑑 (1)

𝑑𝑋𝑖 𝐹(𝑋𝑖−1 −𝑋𝑖 )+𝑉𝑌𝑖−1 −𝑌𝑖

𝑑𝑡
= 𝑀
(2)

By considering the Vapor liquid equilibrium (VLE), Vapor composition with respect to liquid
composition can be obtained by function Y=f(x, α) in eq 3.

𝛼𝑖 𝑋𝑖
𝑌𝑖 = (3)
1 + (𝛼𝑖 − 1)𝑋𝑖
𝐿 = (1 − 𝑅)𝑉 (4)
Where R is the reflux input
Degree of Freedom Analysis:
In the given process, there are 4 equations and 11 variables so the degree of freedom will be

𝐷𝑂𝐹 = 𝑁𝑉 − 𝑁𝐸
Means, 𝐷𝑂𝐹 = 11 − 4

𝐷𝑂𝐹 = 6
𝐷𝑂𝐹 > 0
Its means that infinite number of solutions can be formed but to make it specific we need to specify
the values of F, Zf, D, B

References:

1. Adriana del Carmen Téllez-Anguiano, Instituto Tecnológico de Morelia, Morelia, Michoacán,

México. https://www.intechopen.com/books/distillation-innovative-applications-and-
modeling/mathematical-modelling-of-batch-distillation-columns-a-comparative-analysis-of-
non-linear-and-fuzzy-. DOI 10.5772/66760
2. Aleksandrov A.A., Archer D.J, http://thermopedia.com/content/703/, DOI.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1615/AtoZ.d.distillation