The purpose of this research is to simulate and optimize the aldol-furfural condensation process by stan using reactive distillation and its economic eva‎luation. For this purpose, first, the desired conventional process unit was simulated with V.14 Aspen Plus software and validated with the available data. In the following, using the same software, the initial simulation of the reactive distillation tower was performed. Using the results obtained from the initial simulation, optimization was done by sensitivity analysis. The results of this analysis showed that the simulated reactive distillation tower is highly dependent on the temperature and pressure conditions prevailing in the tower and the change in these conditions leads to the improvement of its performance. After that, the comparison between the initial simulation and the optimized tower was made and compared and discussed. By changing the key variables of this tower, a favorable conversion percentage of 0.793 was obtained. In the final part, economic calculations were performed for the simulated unit and the results were measured with a conventional process unit. The analysis of the results showed a 55% reduction in total capital costs and a 4% reduction in the final product price, along with the superiority of reactive distillation over the conventional process.

كيقباد شمس اسحاقي

محسن نصراصفهاني , محمد هادي جزيني