Design A Process Of Methyl Ethyl Ketone Production
Samyabrata Bhattacharjee
Haldia Institute of Technology
Background:
Methyl Ethyl ketone (MEK) is widely used in industrial application, especially
as an industrial solvent for plastics, resins, paint, and adhesives. Due to its broad
applications, MEK is considered as the most principal commercially
manufactured ketone.
Some important data regarding methyl ethyl ketone are listed below:
Molecular weight = 72
Boiling point (oC) = 79.57
Freeing point (oC) = -85.9
Density at 200C (g/lit) = 804.5
Heat of fusion, (KJ/kg Ok) = 103.3
Under normal condition and in the absence of atmospheric oxygen MEK is stable
but under prolonged storage in oxygen may formed peroxide. It is heat and light
stable but not in UV exposure (Yield ethane, methane, carbon monoxide,
ethylene, and diacetyl).
MEK are produced today by several process and widely available in literature but
the most important things to consider is the safety and the pollution for the
plant. MEK is neither highly toxic nor does it exhibits cumulative toxicological
property. Inhalation for longer time may leads to the irritation in mucus
membrane and cause nausea and eventually leads to unconsciousness. Liquid
MEK temporarily irritates the eye and corneas but usually absorbed through the
respiratory track and by skins. It is highly flammable.
The use of safety and protective equipment likes gloves, wearing safety shoes,
goggles and helmet are used at the time to MEK handling for operation. The water
is polluted by the plant effluent and the critical factor operating under such a
situation is the biological oxygen demand (BOD). Microorganisms’ process are
used for the purification of the plant effluent water.
Description of the flowsheet
MEK produced from 2-butanol by dehydrogenation, entire flow sheet is done in
C.G.S unit. 2-Butanol (S-01) is feed to the heat exchanger at 30 oC in shell side
from storage tank. The output stream from a heat exchanger (S-02) is fed to the
reactor at 100 oC at the 90 % conversion rate. After the reaction the product gas
(S-06) mixture leaving the reactor at 400oC is fed to the heat exchanger in the
tube side (S-03), another output stream (S-05) from reactor has no composition.
Stream in tube side (S-03) leaves the heat exchanger at (S-04) at 106.603 OC and
is cooled to 80OC by cooler (S-07). The gas if fed (S-07) to the gas-liquid
separator (hydrogen knock out drum), where the hydrogen is separated (S-08)
from the mixture of 2-butanol and MEK (S-09) at low temperature and high
pressure. The mixture stream (S-09) was pass through expander and then through
(S-10) heater to decrease the pressure and to increase the temperature. Then (S-
11) finally introduce in the distillation column (chemsep column) in a given
specification and 99.067% of pure MEK obtain from the overhead of the
distillation column (S-13) and rest obtain from the bottom stream (S-12).
Flowsheet of the process in DWSIM:
Result:
Parameters of all material streams (in C.G.S unit).
Master Property Table
Object S-13 S-12 S-11 S-10 S-09 S-08 S-07 S-06 S-05 S-04 S-03 S-02 S-01
Temperature 75.964 101.92 80 9.98131 10 10 80 400 400 106.603 400 100 30 C
Pressure 1 1.1 1 1 3.5 3.5 0.9797 1 1 0.9797 1 1 1 atm
Mass Flow 0 0 636.244 636.244 636.244 25.6988 661.943 661.943 0 661.943 661.943 661.943 661.943 g/s
Molar Flow 0 0 8.79938 8.79938 8.79938 8.16857 16.968 16.968 0 16.968 16.968 8.9305 8.9305 mol/s
Volumetric Flow 0 0 2264.1 778.219 778.041 54223.6 501867 937205 0 539673 937205 273434 825.9 cm3/s
Density (Mixture) ∞ ∞ 0.281014 0.817564 0.817751 0.00047394 0.00131896 0.000706295 ∞ 0.00122656 0.000706295 0.00242085 0.801481 g/cm3