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Solvents plant, Texas City, Texas, USA

Methyl ethyl ketone from 2-butanol dehydrogenation — a PENG-ROBINSON process flowsheet

Catalytic dehydrogenation of 2-butanol to methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) over an In/MgO catalyst, per DE2831465A1 (1978), followed by a flash to remove the H₂ co-product and a distillation splitting MEK from unreacted 2-butanol.

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FEED
Dehydro
COOL
Flash
H2 Offgas
feed
dist
btms
COL
MEK Product
Butanol Bottoms
What this showcases
  • Rigorous PENG-ROBINSON thermodynamics, solved by the same engine every simulation runs on.
  • 4 unit operations modeled: Dehydro, COOL, Flash, COL.
  • Focus areas: Dehydrogenation, Ketone, Solvent production.
Specification
Thermodynamics
PENG-ROBINSON
Components
2_butanol, methyl_ethyl_ketone, h2
Unit operations
DehydroCOOLFlashCOL
Open in workspace

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Read the step-by-step guide
Python SDK

Reproduce this exact result from Python — the real client.get_example() → run_and_wait() path, not a mockup.

from flowsim.sdk import FlowSimClient

client = FlowSimClient()
example = client.get_example("mek-from-2-butanol")
sim = client.create_simulation(example["title"], example["flowsheet"])
result = client.run_and_wait(sim["id"])

print(result["status"])              # "converged"
streams = client.streams(sim["id"])

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