Equipment design: Reactive distillation column design

Abstract

The design of reactive distillation systems is considerably more complex than that of conventional reactors and distillation columns. It includes several steps (Malone and Doherty, 2000): feasibility analysis, conceptual design, equipment selection and design, operability and control studies. These steps can be corresponded to the stages of the process design model presented in this work - ABstract design (feasibility analysis), Conceptual design, DEtailed design (equipment selection and design) and Final design (operability and control studies). The methodology of case-based design support has been applied to the DE phase of the design of a reactive distillation column. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.