Intensified hydroformylation as an example for flexible intermediates production

• Economic comparison between a conventional and an intensified process for hydroformylation of propene.
• Intensified process consists of jet loop reactors and a membrane section for catalyst recovery.
• Higher conversion and selectivity of the intensified process reduce operating costs by 7%.
• A modular design is applied to the intensified process which allows a stepwise expansion and an earlier startup of the plant.
• The modular approach increases equivalent annual annuity by 5% compared to an installation of full capacity at once.

One of the future challenges for chemical engineering is the design of flexible plants allowing an adaptation of production output to market development. Consequently, the target for the design of new processes must be the identification of equipment allowing such an expansion close to market development. To leverage the full benefit of this approach flexibility analysis has to be integrated into process design workflow. In this article the conventional technology for hydroformylation is compared to an intensified process design. This new design consists of a jet loop reactor followed by a membrane section to separate and recycle the homogenous catalyst. In the first part of the article it will be shown that process intensification leads to a net present value improvement of 30% compared to state of the art hydroformylation at a capacity of 100 kt/a. In the second part suitability of the intensified process for a stepwise plant expansion will be demonstrated. In an expansion scenario with two steps equivalent annual annuity is increased by 5% compared to a one step investment.