2025 Spring Meeting and 21st Global Congress on Process Safety
(86a) Examples of Improving Batch Distillation with Process Control and Dynamic Simulation
Authors
Douglas Greminger - Presenter, Corteva Agriscience
Samrat Mukherjee, Abbott Laboratories
Elizabeth Singh, Corteva Agriscience
Batch distillation is different from continuous distillation. A batch column is started up with every batch, rather than only during infrequent turnarounds. A batch column can perform multiple separations in a single batch, with different relative volatilities for each separation and different physical properties like the latent heats and thermal stability for each product. Whether designing a new system or optimizing an existing one, cycle time must be minimized to achieve high productivity. Good equipment design will reduce cycle time, but the control strategy must be able to adapt to changing conditions. Dynamic process modelling can be used to develop and test control strategies as well as helping to design process equipment. Results from plant optimizations will be used to illustrate these concepts.