UNIVERSITI TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE

ASSIGNMENT

Unit Code and title

UEMK 3313 Chemical Process Control and Instrumentation

Course

Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) Chemical Engineering

Semester

January 2016

Lecturer

Ir Dr Lee Tin Sin

Due Date

24th March 2016 (Reminder: 1 mark reduction for each day delay)

Group Assignment (4 to 5 persons group)

Supreme Solution Inc is a consultancy film on chemical process development. Recently, they are awarded by a giant petrochemical
company to conduct a preliminary study on the vinyl acetate production process. Your team is so fortunate to be assigned by the
project director to handle the process control and instrumentation setup of the vinyl acetate production plant. Vinyl acetate is an
organic compound with the formula CH3COOCH=CH2, a colorless liquid with a pungent odor, it is the precursor to polyvinyl acetate,
an important polymer in industry. Your team is required to design the most appropriate process control strategies and the related
instrumentations for the vinyl acetate production as shown in the process flow diagram of Figure 1. The control system is preferred to
be as simple and economical as possible but sufficiently and efficiently to cater for the control purpose according the process
description and contraints. The final report which submitting to director should include the following:

Page 1 of 7

UNIVERSITI TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE
1) Provide an overall description of vinyl acetate production technology.
2) Describe your control functions/strategies and justify the instruments selection.
3) Explain the function(s) of each instrument applied to the control system.

Some basic control requirements are provided by the manager as follows for the reaction process of vinyl acetate:

PROCESS REQUIREMENTS

1. Basic Control Requirement

The reactions take place in the reactor::

Main reaction: C2H4 + CH3COOH + O2

Side reaction: C2H4 + 3O2

CH2=CHOCOCH3 + H2O (exothermic = 176.2 kJ/mol)

2CO2 + 2H2O (highly exothermic = 1323 kJ/mol)

Process constraints
1. O2 concentration must not exceed 8 mol% anywhere in the gas recycle loop to remain outside the explosivity envelope of
ethylene.
2. The pressure in the gas recycle loop and distillation column cannot exceed 965 kPa because of the mechanical construction
limit of the vessels.
3. The peak reactor temperature along the length of the tube must remain below 200 oC to prevent mechanical damage to the
catalyst.

Page 2 of 7

UNIVERSITI TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE
4. Reactor inlet temperature and the hot side exit temperature from the feed-effluent heat exchanger (FEHE) must remain above
130 oC to avoid condensation of liquid.
5. In the distillation column, the acetic acid in the decanter organic phase must not exceed 600 ppm as a product specification.
6. The VAc composition in the bottoms stream must remain below 100 ppm to prevent polymerization and fouling in the reboiler
and vaporizer.
7. Inert ethane (C2H6) is fed together with fresh ethylene stream as impurity.

2. Safety Control Requirement

Since this system involves corrosive and highly flammable chemical. Please indicate the additional instrumentations required to
ensure safe operation during some unexpected circumstances such as malfunction of control system.

3. Relevant information to task

Important aspects to consider:

1) Efficiency of the process controls.

2) Moment of power interruption/emergency shutdown
3) Minimizing instruments cost by minimizing usage of controller and mechanical-elctromagnetic converter (MEC) or MEC
containing equipment.

Page 3 of 7

UNIVERSITI TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE
List of applicable instruments:

Measuring device
1) Level sensor/switch (high level- HL & low level- LL), level sensor/transmitter (point type- LS or continuous type- CLT)
2) Flow meter (FM), flow sensor/indicator (FS/FI).
3) Resistance Temperature Detectors (RTD), thermocouple wires (T), temperature gauge (TG), temperature indicator (TI).
4) Pressure sensor/transmitter (PT), pressure indicator (PI), pressure gauge (PG)
5) Composition analyzer/transmitter (AT).

Controller & transducer

1) Level controller (LC)
2) Flow controller (FC)
3) Temperature controller (TC)
4) Pressure controller (PC), pressure switch (PS)
5) I/P transducer (IP)
6) Composition controller (CC)
7) Composition analyzer controller (AC)
8) Ratio controller (RC)
9) Solenoid valve/switch (SV/SS)
*Electrical motors can be interlocked with other instruments directly via switching contactor (CS).

Page 4 of 7

UNIVERSITI TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE
Final Control Element
1) Actuated valve (AV), control valve (CV), pressure relief valve (PV).

NOTICE: Please refer to recommended references for a more precise/common symbol & abbreviation.

Contents of the report

1) Brief explanation on the overall vinyl acetate production process for about 1000 words with 2 Figures and 2 Tables are allowed
only. All references must be cited according to UTAR Thesis/FYP standard. At least 5 papers/book chapters must be referred.
NO INTERNET REFERENCES ARE ALLOWED- i.e. WIKIPEDIA. Recommend to search from ScienceDirect, Wiley
Interscience and Springerlink database.
2) The report should introduce the type of control strategies and its advantages. The basic functions of each control system
component & how they related to control objectives need to be explained. The Process Flow Diagram must be REDRAWN
using the STANDARD SYMBOLS for each type of instruments (process & instrumentation diagram- P & ID). Recommended
tool; Microsoft Visio Technical drawing software.

REMINDER: This assignment contributes 15% out of the 40% of the total coursework marks.

Page 5 of 7

UNIVERSITI TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE
RECOMMENDED REFERENCES:
1) Perrys Chemical Engineers Handbook 7th Ed. (1997). McGraw-Hill.

2) Turton, R., Bailie, R. C., Whiting, W. B. and Shaeiwitz, J. A. (2009). Analysis, Synthesis and Design of Chemical Processes.
Prentice Hall.

3) McAvinew, T. and Mulley, R. (2004). Control System Documentation- Applying Symbols and Identification 2 edition. The
Instrumentation, System, and Automation Society.

Page 6 of 7

UNIVERSITI TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE

Figure 1 Process flow diagram of the vinyl acetate monomer production plant

Page 7 of 7