Driving Force Based Design and Control Performance Analysis of Reactive Distillation Columns

Abstract This paper presents a toolbox for driving force based integrated design and control of reactive distillation (RD) systems. The toolbox provides links to other necessary tools for the design, simulation, and analysis of RD systems. One convenient feature of the toolbox is that it guides the user through the steps of problem definition, including the selection of design-control variables and associated data-flow as well as the generation of the necessary scripts for links to simulation and analysis software. The implementation of this new toolbox is tested through binary/multielement single/double feed RD systems. For each RD system, the needed driving force calculations are done in ProCAPE. Steady state simulation and analysis are performed through ASPEN PLUS, MoT, or ProCACD. Dynamic open and closed-loop PI or MPC simulations are performed in ASPEN PLUS Dynamics, MoT, or MATLAB. The goal of the tests is to confirm the advantages of using the toolbox for studies involving RD systems in terms of fast, reliable, and efficient solution and analysis of integrated design-control problems.