CURTIN UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING Process Plant Engineering 322/518 Tutorial Sheet 1 Process Creation & Process

Flow Diagram

1. Given that the objective is to manufacture vinyl chloride, there are at least five reaction paths that can be readily exploited. a. Direct chlorination of ethylene b. Hydrochlorination of Acetylene c. Thermal cracking of dichloroethane from chlorination of ethylene

d. Thermal cracking of dichloroethane from oxychlorination of ethylene

e. Balanced process for chlorination of ethylene

The market values of the materials involved are given in the table bellow.

Oxygen is considered to be free at this stage, coming from the atmosphere. Which reaction path makes most sense on the basis of raw material costs, product and by-product values?

2. Isopropyl alcohol is vaporised, heated and feed to a reactor, where it undergoes catalytic dehydrogenation to acetone. The reactor exit gases

A/Prof Hari Vuthaluru

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11/08/2013

(acetone, water, hydrogen and unreacted isopropyl alcohol) pass to a condenser where most of the acetone, water and alcohol condense out. The final traces of acetone and alcohol are removed in a water scrubber. The effluent from the scrubber is combined with the condensate from the condenser, and distilled in a column to produce pure acetone and an effluent consisting of water and alcohol. This effluent is distilled in a second column to separate the excess water. The product from the second column is an azeotrope of water and isopropyl alcohol .This is recycled to the reactor. Prepare a qualitative flow diagram for the process, showing all pieces of equipment!

A/Prof Hari Vuthaluru

Page 2

11/08/2013