Optimal Reactor Design via Flux Profile Analysis for an Integrated Hydroformylation Process

Different operational modes, various scales, and complex phenomena make the design of a chemical process a challenging task. Besides conducting basic lab experiments and deriving fundamental kinetic and thermodynamic models, a crucial task within the entire process design is the synthesis of an optimal reactor-network constituting the core of a chemical process. However, instead of directly up-scaling the process to large devices, it is wise to investigate process characteristics on the miniplant scale. For an existing miniplant for the hydroformylation of 1-do decene using a rhodium catalyst and a thermomorphic solvent system for catalyst recovery, two optimized reactor designs are derived. Suitable reactor-networks were synthesized by applying the Flux Profile Analysis approach introduced in Kaiser et al. (2017). The combination of a first reactor with dynamic/distributed control options and a subsequent back-mixed continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) arose to be the most promising configurations. The technical design under miniplant conditions was carried out for two possible realizations of this network, namely (i) a continuous flow reactor and (ii) a periodically operated semibatch reactor, both followed by the existing CSTR which was originally operated in the miniplant. An optimization of the two optimal reactor configurations within an overall process including a liquid liquid phase separation for catalyst recovery and a distillation column for separating the solvents and reactant evinced a selectivity with respect to the linear aldehyde around 94% and a conversion around 98%. This is a large improvement of the process performance of 24% linear aldehyde selectivity and 40% conversion when using the existing CSTR.