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Dangers of component trapping in distillation: an industrial methanol distillation case study

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dc.contributor.author Udugama, IA
dc.contributor.author Mansouri, SS
dc.contributor.author Kirkpatrick, R
dc.contributor.author Young, B
dc.contributor.author Taube, MA
dc.contributor.editor Chathuranga, D
dc.date.accessioned 2022-09-02T04:08:58Z
dc.date.available 2022-09-02T04:08:58Z
dc.date.issued 2018-05
dc.identifier.citation I. A. Udugama, S. S. Mansouri, R. Kirkpatrick, B. Young and M. A. Taube, "Dangers of Component Trapping in Distillation: : An Industrial Methanol Distillation Case Study," 2018 Moratuwa Engineering Research Conference (MERCon), 2018, pp. 49-53, doi: 10.1109/MERCon.2018.8421915. en_US
dc.identifier.uri http://dl.lib.uom.lk/handle/123/18849
dc.description.abstract The formation of organic acids due to secondary reactions is an issue in industrial methanol synthesis. As such, to avoid the formation of acidic regions in the units downstream of the methanol synthesis loop, caustic dosing is a common practice in the industry. Despite these precautions, some organic acids can be left in crude methanol discharge from the methanol synthesis loop. The objective of this study was to identify if the mode of operations in the methanol distillation units that purifies the crude methanol into high purity product can potentially lead to an accumulation of trace organic acids within the main refining column, which can lead to the formation of an acidic region within the column. To carry out this work, the main refining column of an industrial methanol producer was first simulated on the industrial process simulation platform VMGSim, and then validated against available data. This simulation was then used to study the accumulation of organic acids ranging from formic acid to valeric acid, where they were added to the feed stream at a concentration of 1 ppm. The study found that propionic and butyric acid, in particular, can accumulate significantly in the middle of the column reaching a concentration of 40 to 80 ppm creating an acidic environment ( PH 3.63), which can cause corrosive damage. en_US
dc.language.iso en en_US
dc.publisher IEEE en_US
dc.relation.uri https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8421915/ en_US
dc.subject Component trapping en_US
dc.subject Methanol Distillation en_US
dc.subject Acid accumilation en_US
dc.title Dangers of component trapping in distillation: an industrial methanol distillation case study en_US
dc.type Conference-Full-text en_US
dc.identifier.faculty Engineering
dc.identifier.department Engineering Research Unit, University of Moratuwa en_US
dc.identifier.year 2018 en_US
dc.identifier.conference 2018 Moratuwa Engineering Research Conference (MERCon) en_US
dc.identifier.place Moratuwa, Sri Lanka en_US
dc.identifier.pgnos pp. 49-53 en_US
dc.identifier.proceeding Proceedings of 2018 Moratuwa Engineering Research Conference (MERCon) en_US
dc.identifier.doi 10.1109/MERCon.2018.8421915 en_US


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