Simulation of Cumene Synthesis by Suspension Catalytic Distillation

摘要

This paper deals with alkylation of benzene with propylene to produce cumene by Suspension Catalytic Distillation (SCD) which, as a new technology of process intensification, has been developed from traditional catalytic distillation. In this SCD process, the supported heteropolyacid catalysts are suspended inside the liquid phase on the column tray and flow with them, while in traditional catalytic distillation the catalyst pellets are generally fixed somewhere inside the column. SCD processes have been investigated for alkylation reaction of benzene with olefins in laboratorial scale. A pilot plant of SCD process for cumene synthesis had been run for several months. It has shown more advantageous characteristics for cumene synthesis compared with conventional process consisting of a reactor followed by distillation train. Based on experimental data and the reactive kinetic parameters of cumene synthesis using the supported heteropolyacid catalysts, numerical simulation of SCD process of the pilot plant was performed by an equilibrium stage model to study the effects of operation conditions on the process performance. The simulation results could agree, to a great extent, with the data acquired from the pilot plant experiment.