Modeling and Simulation for industrial ethylene oxide reactors

Dynamic simulation of a fixed bed industrial ethylene oxide reactor has been studied in the presence of long term catalyst deactivation. The performance of the reactor was investigated using of heterogeneous dynamic model. The model was validated against measured daily process data of a ethylene oxide plant recorded for a period of four years. Good agreements was achieved and model was found to predict almost identical results under industrial operating conditions. The high velocity of the reactant stream was found to be the most important reason for this phenomena. The simple model represents useful tool for dynamic simulation, optimization and control of ethylene oxide production.

Keywords:

ethylene oxide , simulation , modeling , Heterogeneous model