Simulation and Optimization of Ethanol Amine Production Plant

In this study a Ethanol Amine (EA) production plant was simulated and optimized. Due to the lack of accurate reaction rate information, the first step was obtaining reliable kinetic data from the SRI (Standford research institute) International industrial database and calculation using the error minimization method. By implementing the resulted reaction kinetics then the whole plant was simulated using Hysys software. The simulation results were compared with the SRI data and concluded that there is acceptable agreement between the simulation and the measured industrial data.Finally using the Gradient Search (GS) optimization technique the plant was optimized using the followings as optimization variables: input ammonia to Ethylene Oxide (EO) molar ratio, input water flow rate, and reactor temperature. Employing process profit as the objective function the optimal operating conditions were found to be: ammonia to EO ratio of 5 (mol/mol), water flow rate of 52.59 kg mol/hr, and reactor temperature of 85°C.