Distillation Process Optimization Based On Process Simulator And The Line-up Competition Algorithm

With the development of science and technology, energy is more and more demanded. Enterprise not only needs to seek alternative energy, but need urgent to solve energy saving technical problems, because of Energy crisis and energy prices rising. Chemical industry is one of the most dependent on energy industry;and the distillation process is the high energy consumption production unit of oil refining, petrochemical and chemical production process. Optimizing the distillation process is one of most effective means of saving energy consumption and improving the efficiency.General process simulator, such as ASPEN PLUS, PRO\â…¡, HYSYS and CHEMCAD, which have strict thermodynamic model, and agile unit process and equipment model, has been widely used in distillation process simulation analysis and design. According to the defect of unable combination of the process simulator and gradient optimization method and optimization problem can be many local optimal problems, the optimization method based on the process simulator and the line-up competition algorithm is proposed, and applied on the distillation process optimization. This article mainly aims at distillation operation optimization and design optimization, main contents are the following:(1) Thorough understanding of energy conservation of distillation method and its significance, the domestic and foreign study on the optimization of the distillation related research work is summarized.(2) The integrated platform between MATLAB and process simulator is established. In this platform, the optimal method based on the process simulator and link-up competition algorithm is proposed. According to time defects of the optimization method, the method is improved. The optimizing design of ternary component separation is proposed to verify the superiority of method, compared to the optimization only by the process simulator.(3) The proposed method is applied to the optimization of distillation operation optimization, with two examples to verify. One is the main fractionating column operation optimization. The steam diesel price throughout the year is divided into four periods; the operation optimization is proposed corresponding to different cycle. The thermal energy utilization and product distribution is considered in the objective function value at the same time. The scheme of the biggest overall benefit is achieved through the optimization. The other one is methanol triple effect distillation operation optimization, which regard total energy consumption as objective function. The optimization of the lowest total energy consumption is achieved.(4) The proposed method is applied to the optimization of the design of the distillation optimization. The method is applied to the optimization design of separating1-butene from C4mixture. The separation sequence and heat integration situation is considered in the optimization model. Optimization results show that the proposed method is effective, not only can be used to the distillation process optimization design, but also can used to the chemical process flow design.