Plantwide Control Structure of the Diethyl Oxalate Process Concerning: Safety and Process Improvement

During the regeneration-coupling process, a novel, plantwide control framework for the diethyl oxalate production unit is provided in this article. The advantage of this study is that it improves the process without the intricacy and expenses of the two structures described by Zhu and Luyben. The development of a plantwide control structure for this process was completed in two stages. The efficiency of the process was initially evaluated using a straightforward structure, with the primary goal being to prevent the usage of concentration controllers and complex cascading mechanisms to the greatest feasible extent. Due to the presence of persistent variations in the effluents of the process in the original structure, it was determined that there were numerous disruptions present that influenced the response during both recycle streams in the process and created variations. During the second phase, using trial and error to implement a functional adjustment in the process, the minimum amount of recycle stream, during which the variations were fully removed, was separated from the process, and a novel feed stream was inserted. Following the implementation of these modifications, it was discovered that variations in the effluent of the process are fully removed with just two concentration controllers, and this structure demonstrates instantaneous plantwide control over the received disturbances.