Abstract
Ethylene is one of the most important product in chemical industry, then it is required to produce ethylene in large quantity. The ethane-ethylene separation is achieved by high pressure cryogenic distillation in a rectification column.
In this paper, an ethane-ethylene rectification column was investigated. At first, the parameters of the column were described, then with two process simulation software – UniSim Design and CHEMCAD –was used to simulate the model of the column.
The purpose of the separation was to reach as much ethylene as possible in the overhead product. Therefore during the parametric examination, the aim was to achieve the greatest – even maximum – quantity and quality of the ethylene in the overhead product. In order to this goal, the influencing effects of the modification of reflux ratio and pressure was evaluated. In addition, changes in the column’s internal design (tray construction) was observed. Furthermore, this study examined the behavior of the system (particularly the ethylene mole fraction in the overhead product and the condenser’s heat flow) when feed’s temperature and mass flow changes.
