System Identification and IMC-Based PID Control of a Reactive Distillation Process: A Case Study of n-Butyl Acetate Production

Abstract

The identification of a reactive distillation system for the production of n-butyl acetate from the esterification reaction between acetic acid and n-butanol has been carried out in this research work. In order to achieve the aim of the research work, a prototype plant of the process was developed using ChemCAD from which dynamics data were generated upon applications of step changes to the reboiler duty and the reflux ratio, which were the input variables of the system. Thereafter, the transfer function of the process, later represented in Simulink environment, was formulated using the dynamics data and with the aid of MATLAB. The simulation of the transfer function model of the system was also carried out for open loop by applying step changes unto the input variables using the developed Simulink model of the system. Thereafter, the closed-loop control system developed also in Simulink environment was simulated by applying step changes to the set-point variable, which was the bottom mole fraction of n-butyl acetate. The results obtained from the simulation of the prototype plant of the reactive distillation process showed ChemCAD to be a powerful tool for steady state and dynamics prototype plant development. Furthermore, good representation and stability were also observed to exist in the system from the formulation and the simulation of the transfer function model of the process, which were carried out with the aid of MATLAB/Simulink. Moreover, the selection of appropriate closed-loop time constant contained in the tuning parameter formulas of IMC-based control system showed that the value suggested by Rivera et al. [1] was very good for this system, compared to those of Chien and Fruehauf [2] and Skogestad [3], because it could give closed-loop dynamic response with comparatively very low values of integral squared error (ISE), integral absolute error (IAE) and integral time absolute error (ITAE) for both proportional-integral (PI) and proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control systems. In addition, the comparison made between the IMC-based tuning approach and other ones (Cohen-Coon, Tyreus-Luyben and Ziegler-Nichols) considered in this work made it known that IMC-based tuning technique was the best among all those considered because its ISE, IAE and ITAE were found to be the lowest for both PI-and PID-controlled cases simulated.