Effect of relative volatility on temperature based control of quaternary reactive distillation columns

The effect of relative volatility differences among the components on the temperature profiles of a quaternary reactive distillation column and the robustness of temperature based inferential control structures were studied. A generic quaternary system with two feed and two product streams was used. As the relative volatilities of components were reduced at higher temperatures, the number of trays (especially in striping and reactive sections) and vapor boilups increased, while the operating pressure decreased. The selection of the trays to hold at constant temperature was made based on the sensitivity analysis and the singular value decomposition analysis. The controllers were tuned using relay-feedback test and Tyreus-Luyben tuning parameters. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 19th International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering and 7th European Congress of Chemical Engineering (Prague, Czech Republic 8/28/2010-9/1/2010).