Page 35 - Design of Simple and Robust Process Plants

18 Chapter 1 Introduction
reaction, and all successive treatment steps are executed in the same reactor vessel.
Batch reactors may be used for all types of chemicals and treatment steps. For exam-
ple, the following treatment steps can be mentioned: post reaction, neutralization,
distillation, evaporation, devolatilization, extraction, crystallization, cooling, wash-
ing, filtering, drying and additions for customer processing and product inhibitors.
Typical for original designs for batch processes is the initial loading of the reac-
tion components and the opening of the reactor vessel to add chemicals manually.
Such a process has several handicaps; initially, it is less safe, as pre-loading of the
reaction components may result in an uncontrolled reaction. Another disadvantage

Water
Manual Additives
H.C. feeds
Vent to air

heating/ cooling
H.C.1 H.C.2

Strip medium

H.C. storage H.C. storage Batch reactor Filter Storage tanks Customer
per recipe
Fig. 1.4. First-generation flowsheet of batch reactor plant with
an extended product tank park.

Water Additives
Vent
recovery
Cooling/
heating
H.C.1 H.C.
mix
Vent
recovery
Cooling/
H.C.2
heating
H.C.
Raw material mix
Storage Feed tanks Con-add batch reactors Post reactor / Devolatization
Post
additives Cooling

Post
additives Cooling

Customer Product Tanks Lot Tanks Filter Cooling
Fig. 1.5. Second-generation flowsheet of continuously added
batch reactor systems: safer, and higher capacity.