Temperature Inferential Dynamic Matrix Control of Reactive Distillation Systems

AbstractTwo-temperature inferential control of the ideal and the methyl acetate double feed reactive distillation (RD) systems operated neat is evaluated using constrained dynamic matrix control (CDMC) and traditional decentralized control. For the ideal RD system, significant improvement in the stripping tray temperature control and the transient deviation in the bottoms purity is observed using CDMC. For the methyl acetate system, CDMC results in significant improvement in the control of the two tray temperatures as well as transient deviations in both the distillate and bottoms purity. Results also show that the magnitude of the maximum through-put change for which the control system fails is noticeably higher using CDMC.