Control of plantwide reactive distillation processes: Hydrolysis, transesterification and two-stage esterification

General design principles for controlling plantwide reactive distillation processes are developed in this work. Three cases of plantwide RD processes with large recycle flow rates are used to illustrate the application of the design principals. The cases are hydrolysis of methyl acetate, transesterification of methyl acetate and esterification of adipic acid. The design principles produce workable control structures for the three systems. Temperature and temperature-composition control structures can deal with the two major disturbances: changes in the feed flow rates and reactant composition. Results show that the control structures offer good robustness and acceptable dynamic performances.