Presented Problem: Build 2nd column to meet sales and find where losing 562K lbs/yr product for new chemist in group.
History: Process had been worked on for 31 years by numerous chemists and chemical engineers and my technical peers, except the new chemist, all felt the process was optimized.
Core Problem: Process was run at far too high of reflux under high vacuum,
causing the semi-batch distillation to take 3-4 times as long as required and
huge unnecessary vent losses (of back-ordered, sold-out product)
Process Results:
Changed to run at 70% of flooding near minimum reflux,
Throttled back vacuum to only level needed
Cut cycle times from over 10 days to under 3 days
Cut steam and cooling water use by over 70%
Business Results:
Met higher production rate while ending plans for spending $5 MM in capital
Increased recovery by about 500K lbs/yr, increasing sales by ~ $ 5 MM
(contact me for more info on this)
Bloomdahl Engineering 