Training Tool for Dynamic Simulation of Reactive Distillation

Reactive distillation is an operation in which separation and chemical reaction take place simultaneously within a fractional distillation column. Running such an operation in laboratory conditions is difficult. To enable students to better understand the process, a computer simulation is presented. Students can set the parameters for the process and observe the effects. To better understand the transient states of such a multifunctional process, students are often asked to perform some parametric studies on the problem; they study the dependencies that exist between different variables in the process. This exercise provides students with knowledge of the dynamics of multifunctional reactors. We use it in our course “Fundamentals in Chemical Technology.”