Modeling of the First of a Kind Technology for the Process Design Packages

The first of a kind technology is developed in laboratory and pilot unit. In order to scale-up an innovative technology to a commercial plant, a process design package (PDP) must be developed to provide the PFD, P&ID, specifications of all equipment and instrument, as well as heat and material balance. A reliable simulation model for the whole plant is the soul and foundation for PDP. This presentation illustrates the main steps to construct a simulation model: (1) select reliable simulation tool; (2) develop and evaluate thermodynamic package (VLE, LLE, and VLLE parameters); (3) Validate reaction kinetics, determine the key factors affecting reaction yield and selectivity, and select the suitable type of reactors; (4) Evaluate available utility sources and conditions; (5) Determine separation equipment, verify effectiveness of the separation processes using available experimental data and commercial operating data; (6) determine the over design factors for all equipment; (7) determine the range of operating conditions (normal operation, typical feedstock changes, start-up, end-of-run, and runaway conditions, and shut-down procedures); (8) Build the simulation model for the whole plant; and (9) Risk assessment and mitigation, and the model finalization.

A successful and reliable model for PDP development shall be capable of (1) matching the computation flow diagrams with the actual plant process flow diagrams; (2) generating heat and material balance, utility usage summarization, energy consumption or production, and waste emissions for environmental and HAZOP analysis; (3) predicting the detailed stream physical properties for piping, safety, and instrument design; (4) estimating the heat duty, heat curves, liquid / vapor profiles, and hydraulic data for equipment design; and (5) executing preliminary equipment sizing.