Análise e melhoria econômica do processo de produção de acetona pela desidrogenação do 2-propanol (IPA) usando o simulador de processos COCO

Abstract

Acetone is produced via several alternative processes, one of which is the dehydrogenation of 2-propanol (IPA). The endothermic gas-phase reaction converts IPA to acetone and hydrogen. The process has two distillation columns and an absorption column, where a stream of water is used to recover the acetone. In Ind. Eng. Chem. Res.: Vol. 50 p. 1206-1218 (2011), LUYBEN showed that operating the absorber at a high pressure reduces the losses of acetone, increases the required temperature and cost of the vaporizer heat source. It also negatively affects the kinetics of the reaction, because the reaction is nonequimolar and the conversion decreases with increasing pressure. As such, a higher reactor temperature is required to achieve the desired conversion. In the study addressed in this Final Work, it was proposed to improve the plant presented by LUYBEN (2011) through the simulation of processes using COCO software. For this, studies of sensitivity analysis and proposals were made to include energy integration and water recycling in the original plant. Developed for comparison, the results showed that energy integration showed a significant reduction of energy in the plant and water consumption as a parameter of sustainability.