The objective of this module is the design of an industrial chemical process based on information from open literature sources. The design is technically and economically evaluated.
The module discusses industrial separation processes and chemical reactors in detail. At the end it is expected students need to understand and apply the basic principles of these separation techniques and reactors for separate tests and the project.
The project should give insight in:
- Chemical, thermodynamic and kinetic aspects of the reaction system
- Mass & energy balances
- Design of selected process units
- Basic Process control
- Process safety and
- Process economics for the process selected.
The excursion to the industrial scale process will be the ultimate check!
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| Module bestaat uit de onderwijseenheden |
| Course name |
Code |
| 1. Intr. Chemical Reaction Engineering |
202000745 |
| 2. Intr. Separation Methods |
202000746 |
| 3. Project Process Design |
202000747 |
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This module deals with process design. For design it is essential to understand the basic units of a process; the unit operations. The heart is the reactor in which the raw material is converted into the product. This will be with a limited conversion and selectivity. This results in a product stream from the reactor containing raw material, side products, maybe a solvent and the product. This has to be separated to obtain the product at specification and to recycle the raw material. This will not be one unit but several unit operations in series. The selection and sequence is essential for the technical and economic feasibility of the process. The conversion process in the reactor determines the separation effort. If the reactor operates ideally at 100% conversion and 100% selectivity hardly any separation is needed.
Therefor this module focusses on chemical reactors and on industrial separation processes. This knowledge can be applied in the project.
The course Introduction to Chemical Reaction Engineering focusses on model reactors (PFR, CSTR, BR), micro mixing, multiple reactions in parallel and/or series, reaction kinetics, isothermal and non-isothermal operation, and mixtures with constant and changing densities.
Industrial separation processes focusses on distillation, absorption/desorption, extraction, adsorption, drying, crystallization, sedimentation, filtration and membranes. This course also includes a practicum with the distillation column. Each team (3-4 students) will get 2½ days each for this assignment.
The project focusses on the design of an industrial process (e.g., in 2021 this was the Methyl-Tert-Butyl (MTBE) process and the Propylene Oxide-t-butyl alcohol (PO-TBA) process at LyondellBasell Rotterdam). The processes are selected in accordance with the company to be able to visit the process and present our results to the staff. In 2021 this was due to Corona an online excursion. A project team consists of 3-4 students. The project is finalized with a report and an individual oral exam.
The project combines knowledge obtained in previous modules e.g.:
Information collection
Chemistry (reaction equations, reaction mechanism)
Thermodynamics
Mass & energy balances
Kinetics and catalysis
Distillation
Matlab modelling
Within the project this knowledge is extended on:
Estimation of properties, additional information collection, design of two or three selected unit operations, process control, industrial safety (two guest lectures) and process economics.
The calculations will be done in Excel (mass & energy balances) and Matlab (reactor design).
Two excursions are scheduled:
One-day excursion to the Safety lab of Nouryon, Deventer with lectures and demonstrations
One or two day excursion to the company involved to visit the investigated process.
Both were in 2021 online visits.
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