Plantwide control structure design for acetone process via dehydrogenation of 2-propanol

Abstract

Most chemical plants consist of a number of processing units to ensure its safety and stability of process operations. Processes involved recycling of material and energy are much more complex due to intensive interactions among units. These lead to an extremely complex dynamic behavior resulting in consistency of undesired products. However, the requirements of market, social and environment demand constant product quality in order to manage cost, energy and raw materials efficiently. To achieve all objectives, therefore, plantwide control plays an important role in the improvement of the modern chemical processes. Acetone is a common chemical product which has been widely used as a solvent and as a reactant for many chemical processes. One of the syntheses of acetone is dehydrogenation of 2-propanol. In this research, a control structure of the acetone process is designed by using the heuristics procedure of Wongsri (2012). The procedure takes the fixture plant into consideration to provide a reasonable control structure which is straightforward to understand. The control structure is then designed at steady state and dynamic conditions through a commercial process dynamics simulator. Consequently, the control structure is well handled with both material and thermal disturbances.