Assignment
1
Distillation
Group Project
Group 1 – Eth Glycol/Water System
Acme Pharmaceuticals are considering investment
in a distillation system to recover ethylene glycol from a wastewater
stream. At present, they pay to have the
waste removed off site and safely disposed at a cost of €1 per litre of
waste. They would like some general
information about the option of recovering the ethylene glycol by distillation
such as capital and operating costs, what size the distillation column would be
and how much ethylene glycol would be recovered.
The waste is produced by one step in the
process of API manufacture with the result that approximately 20 drums of waste
are produced per day. Laboratory analysis
shows that the waste is normally 20% ethylene glycol and 80% water by
volume. Either a continuous distillation
unit or a batch distillation approach could be used due to the small volumes of
waste produced.
Acme Pharmaceuticals need to know the
following:
·
Should
continuous or batch distillation be used?
Choose one option, justify the decision, and proceed with the rest of
the assignment on this basis.
·
What
size will the distillation column be? (Height and footprint)
·
What
will be the composition of the bottom and distillate streams?
·
How
will the feed be supplied to the distillation unit?
·
What
will be the capital cost? (A rough estimate).
·
What
will be the operating cost?
·
What
is the approximate payback time on capital cost?
Your report should include the following:
·
Details
on the column internals.
·
A
process flow diagram for the system.
·
For
the batch option, how long will a distillation take.
·
An
energy balance.
·
Details
on the reboiler and condenser (size, material of
construction, etc.).
·
Operating
conditions (stream temperatures and pressures, reflux ratio, etc.)
Prepare a report to address all of the above issues. State clearly any assumptions made and reference all information sources used.