Greenhouse Gas emissions reduction by process intensification: Reactive distillation column with side decanter

Abstract

<p>Direct hydration of cyclohexene to produce cyclohexanol is the industrial process with a lower</p><p>raw material cost but with a quite expensive process. Large energy consumption is consequence</p><p>of large cyclohexene recycle related with its unfavourable chemical equilibrium. This study corroborates</p><p>that the Asahi process is a good candidate for intensification avoiding the cyclohexene</p><p>recycle. Rigorous simulation shows that a single reactive distillation column, with a side decanter,</p><p>operated at total reflux, allows overcoming the chemical equilibrium limitations as the product is</p><p>continuously collected by the column bottoms and the heat of reaction is directly used to</p><p>separate the product by distillation. The novel process is studied and compared to the classical</p><p>Asahi process. An energy comparison with the available processes proposed in the literature is</p><p>performed. Therefore, achieving more energy-efficient processes leads to lowering their environmental</p><p>impact, thus decreasing the carbon dioxide emissions. Applying the proposed methodology</p><p>for cyclohexanol production, more than 67,000 t CO2/y emissions can be avoided</p><p>compared to the nowadays used classical process, thus the potential savings applying process</p><p>intensification to the chemical industry are very large and worth further investigation.</p>