Simulação e otimização do processo de purificação do hexametilenodiamina (HMD) e determinação das características das colunas de destilação

Abstract

Hexamethylenediamine (HMD) is an amine that has several applications mainly used for nylon manufacture. The formation reaction of HMD occurs through the hydrogenation of adiponitrile (ADN), which passes through an intermediate, 6- Aminocapronitrile (ACN). This reaction can generate several by-products, so the purification process is extremely important. Analyzing the potential growth of the HMD market, a Chinese petrochemical company aims to increase the production scale in its industrial plant. Considering the importance of the purification step of the process to obtain HMD with 99% purity on a mass basis, this work aims to perform the simulation of the process distillation columns, defining the operating parameters and performing an optimization of the columns to reduce the energy demand of the columns. At the end of the process, it was possible to obtain 763.53 ton/day of HMD with a purity of 99.993% on a mass basis. The reduction in the energy demand of the reboiler was not significant for the columns, with a value of only 765.5800 cal/s, however the reduction of the thermal load of the condensers was the most significant, achieving a reduction of 100243.3 cal/s.