Process Design and Optimization for Separation of Ethylene Oxide & Water Using Simulator

Ethylene Oxide was first reported in 1859 as being prepared from the reaction of potassium hydroxide on ethylene chlorohydrins. But nowadays it is mainly prepared by direct oxidation of ethylene with oxygen on silver based catalyst. In its final product stream along with ethylene oxide many other impurities like formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, unconverted ethylene, water and other inert gases are also present. So its purification consist of many stages which includes stripping zone, scrubbing zone, phase separator, an ethylene oxide purification zone and their interconnections. In its scrubbing step ethylene oxide is scrubbed from other impurities with help of excess of water which needs to be removed so it can be reused for scrubbing purpose as well as to get pure ethylene oxide. For commercial purpose like its use in epoxy paints, as surfactants demands highly pure ethylene oxide having purity of more than 99.5%. Present study aims to separate Ethylene oxide from water at minimum cost and high purity using distillation process as a means of purifying technique and then designing its heat exchangers as well as storage tanks to store crude Ethylene oxide as well purified ethylene oxide and finally preparing its process flow diagram to show how exactly the whole purifying stages are connected. Distillation operation is a widely used separation technology because of its ability to provide highly pure components although at high energy cost. In present study Distillation is evaluated has separation technology for separation of Ethylene oxide from water. Simulation of Distillation column were carried out using chemical simulators and then results obtained from simulation were verified for column efficiency by manual calculation as well as program was prepared using Excel to check efficiency. Distillation operation was able to provide purity of around 99% and efficiency of column was achieved around 60%.