Cumene, where excess benzene is the selectivity lever
Benzene and propylene alkylated to cumene, with the unreacted benzene taken overhead at the purity a recycle actually needs.
The actual dark-mode canvas: benzene and propylene alkylated over a fixed-conversion reactor, then the unreacted benzene taken overhead at recycle purity while cumene leaves the bottoms.
Excess benzene is the selectivity lever
Cumene will alkylate a second time to di-isopropylbenzene, and the defence is a large benzene excess — which only pays if the column can return it at recycle purity. Both halves are solved here, so the recycle purity and the reactor ratio move together the way they do in the unit.
Unit ops shipped for this vertical
Combines multiple streams into one, closing the mass and energy balance.
A specified per-pass conversion on a key component — the shortcut counterpart to the equilibrium and kinetic reactors.
Wang-Henke MESH column solver — the same rigorous solve at any scale.
Stream reactor benzene:propylene ratio and column overhead purity from the unit's OPC-UA server into this flowsheet's twin comparison — a drifting ratio shows as di-isopropylbenzene selectivity loss long before the product assay does.
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- ✓Alkylation with rigorous downstream benzene recovery
- ✓Excess benzene suppresses the second alkylation
- ✓After Luyben, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2010, 49, 719