Production of Acrylic Acid

This report provides a complete analysis of an alternate method of production of acrylic acid and highlights the advantages it has over the conventional methods. It covers all the aspects that one needs to consider while setting up a new production plant and thus can act as a suitable guide. Having established the need and profitability prospects of the setup of acrylic acid using ethylene over other possible mechanisms of production in the initial sections, the original hypothesis was proved correct. Following this, the various process flow chart and the process parameters were stated which emphasized the various equipment and raw materials required for the project and gave a rough estimate of the production capacity of the plant. An in-depth analysis was done by using Mass and Energy Balances which can be used to understand the material and power requirements for the process in terms of flow rates and utilities. The ideal break-up of this power requirement through heat exchangers and hot and cold utilities was done and an overall Heat Exchanger Network was drawn. ASPEN Simulations were run which computed and verified the more intrinsic values like all flow rates, composition, entropy and enthalpy values for the different process streams. The Process Flow Diagram gives a crisp representation of the overall design of the plant. Our HEN has 3 heat exchangers, 4 cold utilities and 1 hot utility. Note that this is the MER design which uses minimum utilities and maximum heat recovery. The economic analysis shows that the project has very heavy initial investment of over Rs.22 crores and thus makes it feasible for only those who have access to such heavy investment at a reasonable interest rate. However, the high rate of return (7.8 %) and low payback period (6.3 years) makes our investment worthwhile. Also, the annual profits are very high as compared to the operating cost which implies that in the long run, when the high initial investment is already recovered, our project will be highly profitable.