Production of vinyl acetate from ethylene

The design report details the selected unit operations and processes in the production of vinyl acetate using ethylene, acetic acid and oxygen as the raw materials, the operating conditions, power requirements and associated control loops for all the units in the plant.
The reactants are preheated before being fed into the reactor. The separation process will be divided into two subparts: the separation of the vapour stream and the separation of the liquid stream. The feed will be first passed through the absorber for the separation of the liquid phase and the vapour phase. The liquid stream goes into the distillation column for further separation and recovery of some reacted reactants. The vapour stream goes to a decanter where the reacted ethylene is recovered and further separation of the vapour phase and the liquid phase which are the vinyl acetate and water.
This work aims to design a production plant that is capable of producing 60000 metric tons of vinyl acetate by heterogeneous acetoxylation of ethylene, operating 333 days a year, 24 hours/day.
The report presents the final design of the eight units of the plant which include: preheater, heat exchanger, packed bed reactor, absorption column, two distillation columns, settling tank and a condenser. The design specifications, mechanical column design, auxiliaries and other pertinent information are also covered in this report.

000-099