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Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers

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Plantwide control structure design of a complex hydrogenation

process with four recycle streams
Yan Peng1, Jiaxing Zhu1, Leping Dang, Hongyuan Wei∗
School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Design for plantwide control (PWC) is significantly important for stable, safe, and efficient operation of
Received 30 October 2018 complicated processes. In this work, dynamic simulation and effective PWC structures were investigated
Revised 23 January 2019
for a novel dimethyl oxalate (DMO) hydrogenation process for ethylene glycol (EG) production. This pro-
Accepted 24 January 2019
cess is a typical reaction-separation process with four recycle streams that poses challenges due to inte-
Available online xxx
grated effects and interactions among different sections. Single-end temperature control was applied in
Keywords: the initial control structure CS1, while it failed to handle disturbances due to the interactions and inte-
Plantwide dynamic control grated effects. Then, the initial CS1 was modified with a cascade control to address this problem. The
Ethylene glycol control structure CS2 also achieved stable control through using different criteria for selecting tempera-
Hydrogenation process ture control variables in distillation columns. And the robust control structure CS3 characterized with a
Integrated effect feedforward ratio control significantly shortened the response time and reduced transient deviation. The
Performance assessment
control performances of these control structures were assessed by criteria in terms of DPT and IAE. The
results show that CS3 provides the most effective control. This work will be valuable for the design of
PWC structures for complex reaction-separation processes.
© 2019 Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction An effective plantwide control (PWC) is of great importance for

Ethylene glycol (EG) is an important raw material in organic
chemical and is widely applied in the production of polyester
fibers, deicing fluid and antifreeze. The traditional route for EG
production is the non-catalytic hydration of ethylene oxide. It is
highly energy-intensive due to the low per-pass conversion of the
reaction. In addition, ethylene oxide is flammable and carcinogenic
as an active reactant in view of process safety [1-3]. The syngas-
to-EG process has been considered as a more promising way for
EG production compared with the traditional petroleum route. The
syngas mainly contains of hydrogen (H2 ) and carbon monoxide
(CO) that can be produced from a variety of sources such as coal,
natural gas and biomass. And EG can be produced from syngas in
a direct or an indirect way. Since the direct production method is
almost thermodynamically infeasible, the indirect production ap-
proach has drawn great attention. In this approach, CO undergoes
coupling reaction to produce dimethyl oxalate (DMO), and then EG
is obtained by the hydrogenation of DMO. Therefore, this environ-
mentally friendly and economic route for EG production has been
considered significantly valuable [4,5].
∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: crystallization.wei@hotmail.com (H. Wei).
1
These authors contributed equally to this work and should be considered cofirst
authors.
the operation of integrated processes in terms of safety and sta-
bility. The PWC structures of many complex production processes
have been studied [6-17]. Konda et al. proposed a viable control
system for the hydrodealkylation of toluene process, using an inte-
grated framework of simulation and heuristics [8]. Patle et al. de-
veloped a robust PWC design for a biodiesel production process
utilizing waste cooking oil feedstock [9]. An effective control sys-
tem for the ethyl benzene process proposed by Luyben eliminated
the snowball effect in the recycle of di-ethyl benzene by using a
valve position control structure [10]. Pathak et al. proposed a con-
ventional process with a vapor-phase packed bed reactor and a re-
active distillation process for cumene production, in which a dual-
ended temperature inferential control successfully maintained the
stringent product purity specification [11]. In the monoisopropyl
amine production process studied by Ojasvi and Kaistha, an or-
ganic layer material balance control was applied on the decanter
to speed up the plantwide dynamic response [12]. Li et al. inves-
tigated an improved PWC system for crude terephthalic acid hy-
dropurification process which possessed better performances than
control structures used in industrial plants [13]. Gera et al. stud-
ied the plantwide control for a cumene process using an economic
control structure that was simpler and possessed superior eco-
nomic performance [14]. Iqbal et al. studied an extractive distil-
lation scheme to separate tetrahydrofuran-water azeotropic mix-
ture, and proposed a robust control structure by maintaining the

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtice.2019.01.032
1876-1070/© 2019 Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Y. Peng, J. Zhu and L. Dang et al., Plantwide control structure design of a complex hydrogenation process with
four recycle streams, Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtice.2019.01.032
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MG is further hydrogenated to generate the desired product EG.

Nomenclature Meanwhile, the byproduct ethanol (EtOH) is generated due to the
further hydrogenation of EG. The kinetic expressions for the reac-
Acronyms tions can be obtained in the previous literatures [1,19,20]. And the
PWC plantwide control required kinetic and adsorption parameters of the Aspen Langmuir-
DMO dimethyl oxalate Hinshelwood (LHHW) reaction model are listed in Table S1 in the
EG ethylene glycol supporting information.
CSi control structure, i = 1–3 The flowsheet for EG production is shown in Fig. 1. Both steady-
DPT deviation from the production rate target state and dynamic simulations are performed in Aspen Plus soft-
IAE integral absolute error in product purity ware. The NRTL-RK physical property package is chosen as ther-
COL-i distillation column for separation, i = 1–3 modynamic model for the description of phase equilibrium. Since
SVD singular value decomposition there are many recycle streams and interactions among sections, a
TC temperature controller modified sequential iterative optimization method was used in the
CC composition controller paper by Yu and Chien [1]. The optimization was performed in the
R/F reflux-to-feed ratio order of Reactor+COL-1, COL-2, and COL-3. Some dominant vari-
RR reflux ratio ables including TR (reaction temperature), Tcond (condenser tem-
perature), NF (column feed location), NT (total tray number of col-
Capital letters
umn) and HDMR (H2 to DMO mole ratio) were fixed successively
KC controller gains
to make the TAC (total annual cost) of each section and the TAC of
KU ultimate gain
the whole process minimized. The optimum operating condition
PU ultimate period
and parameters are taken from the previous literature [1]. Note
Di disturbance, i = 1–7
that an isothermal plug flow reactor was assumed by Yu and Chien
Greeks [1], which deviated from the industrial practice and plantwide con-
τI integral time (min) trol. In this study, heat-transfer method of the reactor is chosen as
“reactor with constant thermal fluid temperature” with the ther-
mal fluid at a constant temperature. And a further heater is placed
total entrainer flowrate [15]. Qian et al. proposed several con- at the inlet stream of the reactor to increase the inlet temperature
trol structures for a four-product Kaibel column, in which the to 190 °C. These two modifications can maintain the reactor tem-
single-loop temperature control showed the best performance [16]. perature within the optimal range from 190 °C to 220 °C, as shown
Maity et al. investigated the PWC design for a cumene process us- in Fig. 2. The overall conversion of reactants as well as the selectiv-
ing a top-down control system that possessed superior economic ity of the products can be held quite close to that in the previous
performance [17]. literature [1,19,20].
A recent insightful paper by Yu and Chien investigated a novel There are two fresh feeds referred to DMO and H2 . The fresh
optimum steady-state process design for EG production process in DMO is dissolved in recycled methanol from column 1 (COL-1) to
terms of the hydrogenation of DMO [1]. This process is charac- form a solution. Then, this DMO solution is mixed with fresh H2
terized by high selectivity and conversion. However, the PWC de- and other recycled streams from separation section to form the
sign of the process have not been explored in the open literatures, combined feed. The four recycle streams refer to the hydrogen-
which is another indispensably considering aspect to ensure the rich vapor from the flash unit, the pure methanol from the liquid
optimal and safe operation. Therefore, it is essential to develop ef- distillate of COL-1, the non-condensed gas stream rich in H2 and
ficient control structure(s) for this process. And that’s the purpose gaseous methanol from COL-1 vapor distillate, and the un-reacted
of this paper. It enriches the work of this valuable process and MG from the distillate of column 3 (COL-3). The combined feed is
provides a solid basis for further process study. From the point heated in the feed-effluent-heat-exchanger (FEHE) and is then fur-
of technological challenges, the recycles and the interactions be- ther heated to 190 °C.
tween different sections in the process can degrade the control The reactor outlet stream includes EG, EtOH, methanol (MeOH),
performance due to integrated effects, which is a conundrum in H2 and the unreacted MG. It is firstly cooled in the FEHE and fur-
PWC design [18]. In this article, several effective control structures ther cooled in the heat exchanger. Then it is fed to the flash for
are proposed to eliminate these effects and achieve stable control. gas-liquid separation. The vapor stream rich in hydrogen is com-
And the control performance is enhanced through the feedforward pressed and recycled to the reactor. And the liquid stream is fed
control scheme. Those control schemes and analysis of the inte- to COL-1. Note that a small purge is applied in the gas stream to
grated effects will be valuable for the design of PWC for complex avoid the accumulation of CO and other impurities. The purge ra-
reaction-separation processes. tio is set to maintain the CO composition. The COL-1 is set to sep-
arate methanol and the remaining dissolved gas from the others.
2. Process description Therefore, a partial vapor-liquid condenser is used due to the ex-
istence of the gases. In this way, the vapor stream from condenser
The detailed reaction route of DMO hydrogenation is shown be- (rich in H2 and gaseous MeOH) is reused as reactants and recy-
low [19,20]. cled to the reactor. The liquid distillate stream is mainly methanol.
hydro1
Most of it is reused as a solvent of the fresh DMO and pumped
DMO + H2 ↔ MG + MeOH (1) back to reactor with a high purity of 99.95 mol% to reduce the
loss, and the other part is split out as a pure MeOH product. The
hydro2 purpose of column 2 (COL-2) is to obtain EG and MG with pu-
MG + H2 ↔ EG + MeOH (2) rity specification of 99.9 mol% in bottom product. Note that there
is by-product EtOH that should be removed from the system. The
side remaining MeOH and by-product EtOH are removed as distillate
EG + H2 ↔ EtOH + H2 O (3)
stream and are treated as fuel without further purification. Then,
The hydrogenation of DMO has two steps. First, DMO is hydro- the bottom stream including MG and EG is fed into COL-3. In COL-
genated to form methyl glycolate (MG) as an intermediate. Then, 3, MG in distillate stream is recovered and recycled to the reactor.

Please cite this article as: Y. Peng, J. Zhu and L. Dang et al., Plantwide control structure design of a complex hydrogenation process with
four recycle streams, Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtice.2019.01.032
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Fig. 1. Flowsheet of DMO hydrogenation process.

perimental data in the open literatures [1]. In addition, the valida-

tion of the steady-state model is given in this work, as shown in
the support information.
Before exporting the steady-state Aspen simulation to Aspen
Dynamics, valves and pumps need to be installed. The sizes of all
vessel in the process are also required to be confirmed. The reflux
drums and column sumps in the distillation columns are sized to
provide 5 min liquid holdup when the vessels are half full. And the
flash tank size is also calculated in this method.
In this section, several control structures are explored. The dy-
namic responses of each alternative control scheme are analyzed
when facing disturbances. Moreover, their control performances
are also assessed and compared.

3.1. Control structure CS1

Fig. 2. Temperature profile in the reactor.
And EG as the bottom product is obtained with mass purity speci-
fication of 99.8%.
3. Plantwide control
The dynamic simulation is based on the rigorous steady-state
design, and is directly obtained by exporting from the steady-state
simulation. In the steady state model of Yu and Chien, the param-
eters such as reaction kinetics were obtained according to the ex-
3.1.1. Distillation column control structure
In this control structure, single-end temperature control is used
for all distillation columns. Then a reflux-to-feed ratio (R/F), or a
reflux ratio (RR) structure has to be selected depending on which
one is better for handling a feed composition disturbance. The re-
quired changes in R/F and RR of the three columns after variations
of feed composition are given in Table 1.
The results indicate that the R/F structure has better perfor-
mance in COL-2 and COL-3 since the changes of R/F are less than
RR in the face of composition disturbances. As for COL-1, since
both two structures have almost the same performance, the R/F
structure is also applied [10].

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Fig. 3. Initial CS1; single-end temperature control in all three columns.

Table 1 3.1.2. Plantwide control structure

Effects of feed composition change on R/F and RR variables.
Fig. 3 shows the initial control structure CS1 developed for this
Column No. Feed composition RR R/F process. All the control loops are listed below.
COL-1(MeOH/EG) 0.06349 0.4317 0.4014
0.91934 (1) Fresh DMO feed is flow-controlled.
0.07349 0.4057 0.3732 (2) The composition of H2 in the reactor outlet is maintained by
0.90934
0.08349 0.3866 0.3518
manipulating the H2 feed flow rate.
0.89934 (3) The reactor inlet temperature is controlled by manipulating
COL-2(MeOH/MG) 0.00465 1.2643 0.0980 the heat input of the reactor preheater.
0.06673 (4) Reactor exit temperature is controlled by manipulating the
0.01465 1.4966 0.1011 temperature of the cooling medium on the shell side of
0.05673 the reactor in the Aspen plug-flow reactor model. Physically
0.03465 2.2509 0.1073
0.03673
this corresponds to adjusting the setpoint of a steam back-
pressure controller.
COL-3(EG/MG) 0.95337 8.0062 0.3635
0.04563 (5) The temperature of flash inlet stream is controlled by ma-
0.98337 20.9343 0.3217 nipulating the heat removal of the heat exchanger.
0.01563 (6) The liquid level in the flash tank is controlled by manipulat-
0.99337 34.1007 0.2851 ing the outlet liquid flowrate
0.00563
(7) The column pressures in all three columns are controlled by
manipulating condenser heat removal.
(8) Base levels in all three columns are controlled through ma-
nipulating the flowrate of bottom product.
The temperature on an appropriate tray is controlled by manip- (9) Reflux drum levels in all three columns are controlled
ulating the reboiler duty. The slope criterion method is applied to through manipulating the flowrate of the distillate stream.
determine the selected tray where the slope of temperature profile (10) In all three columns, the reflux flowrate is ratioed to the col-
is steep [21]. Fig. A1 shows the temperature profiles of the three umn feed flowrate using a multiplier which adjusts the set-
columns. The selected tray locations are stage 18, stage 3 and stage point of the reflux flow controller. The input of the multi-
4 for COL-1, COL-2 and COL-3, respectively. plier is the feed flowrate [22].

Please cite this article as: Y. Peng, J. Zhu and L. Dang et al., Plantwide control structure design of a complex hydrogenation process with
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Table 2
Controller range and tuning parameters in initial CS1.

Parameter TCR-out TCCOL-1 TCCOL-2 TCCOL-3 FCPurge

Controlled variable TReactor exit T1,18 T2,3 T3,4 xRe-H2 (CO)

Manipulated variable Steam temperature Reboiler duty Reboiler duty Reboiler duty Purge valve opening
Setpoint 188.96 °C 68.531 °C 51.602 °C 119.384 °C 0.0152mol%
Transmitter range 170–210 °C 0–137.06 °C 30–70 °C 90–150 °C 0–0.0304mol%
Controller output 170 °C 17.940 MMkcal/h 0.164 MMkcal/h 0.476 MMkcal/h 10.009%
Output range 140–200 °C 0–37.026 MMkcal/h 0–0.5 MMkcal/h 0–0.945 MMkcal/h 0–100%
Deadtime (min) 2 1 1 1 3
Gain KC 0.4369 28.6403 0.1058 0.1756 2.1969
Integral time τ I (min) 3.96 5.28 13.20 15.84 36.96

(11) The temperature on stage 18 in COL-1 is controlled through Table 3

manipulating reboiler heat duty.
(12) The temperature on Stage 3 in COL-2 is controlled through
manipulating reboiler heat duty.
(13) The temperature on Stage 4 in COL-3 is controlled through
manipulating reboiler heat duty.
(14) The CO composition on the recycled flash vapor stream is
controlled by manipulating the flowrate of the purge stream.
If the CO composition in the recycle stream increases, the
valve opening will become larger to avoid accumulation of
CO.
3.1.3. Controller tuning
Rigorous dynamic simulations are developed for the process. All
the level controllers are proportional-only with a gain KC = 2. And
the proportional and integral (PI) controllers for pressure control
use a gain of 5 and an integral time of 20 min. A gain of 0.5 and
an integral time of 0.3 min are inserted for all flow control loops.
The temperature and composition controllers need to be tuned
because of the dynamic lags of these loops in the industrial pro-
duction process. Deadtimes of 1 min are assumed in column tray
temperature control loops. And the reactor temperature controller
has a deadtime of 2 min to account for the steam generation dy-
namics. Besides, 3 min deadtimes are assumed in the composi-
tion control loops according to the literatures [10,16,22,23,24]. The
relay-feedback test is applied in this paper using Tyreus-Luyben
tuning rules to determine the parameters of temperature and com-
position controllers. It is a quick and accurate method to obtain
ultimate gain KU and ultimate period PU in Aspen Dynamics. Then
the values of KU and PU are used to calculate the controller gain
KC and integral time τ I . Table 2 shows the tuning results of main
controllers. The details and example of this tuning method and the
results of other controllers are given in supporting information.
3.1.4. Identification of disturbances
Disturbances can present tough challenges to a system during
the operation. Cognizance of possible disturbances in the process
is of vital importance for the control scheme development. In this
work, several disturbances including throughput and composition
disturbances are applied to evaluate the performance of the con-
trol structures. Changes in the DMO feed flowrate are considered
as the throughput disturbances. The composition disturbances are
considered in aspect of the source of raw material.
The main reaction route for DMO production is shown below.
2CO + 2MN → DMO + 2NO
2MeOH + 2NO + 0.5O2 → 2MN + 2H2 O
CO + MN → DMC + 2NO
CO in syngas reacts with methyl nitrite (MN) to generate nitric
oxide (NO) and DMO. Then, NO reacts with MeOH and O2 to re-
generate MN [25-27]. Therefore, the DMO fresh feed may be mixed
Disturbances in the process.
Disturbance Description Magnitude(%)
D1 DMO feed flowrate +2.5
D2 DMO feed flowrate −2.5
D3 DMO feed flowrate +5
D4 DMO feed flowrate −5
D5 MeOH impurity in DMO feed 2 mol
D6 MeOH impurity in DMO feed 4 mol
D7 CO impurity in H2 feed 0.002 mol
with MeOH as impurity. And the methanol impurity at 4 mol% is
considered as composition disturbance in fresh DMO.
The H2 fresh feed is assumed to be from a pressure swing
adsorption unit with a composition of 99.999 mol% H2 and
0.001 mol% CO according to the previous literature [1]. Therefore,
a doubling change in CO impurity is selected as a composition dis-
turbance. All the considered disturbances are listed in Table 3.
3.1.5. Dynamic response
Fig. 4 shows the response of main control loops in initial CS1 in
the presence of disturbance D1 and D2 . The solid lines represent a
2.5% increase in throughput, and the dashed lines represent a 2.5%
decrease. The response of other control loops is given in Fig. A2.
The results show that this control structure needs modifica-
tions to improve the control performance. Temperature and distil-
late product (D1) in COL-1 are well controlled. However, temper-
atures in COL-2 and COL-3 have a relatively large transient devi-
ation. Notice that the composition of MeOH in COL-1 bottom has
a relatively large change. And it becomes more noticeable as the
disturbance increases to 5% as shown in Fig. 5. The initial MeOH
composition (xB1, MeOH, mol%) is 5.6%. At 6 h, it increases to 8.1%
when facing disturbance D3 , and decreases to 3.9% under distur-
bance D4 . The amount of change reaches 45% and 44%, respectively.
Then it has great influences on the control of COL-2 and COL-3.
Those influences include:
(1) Much more or less MeOH must be distillated from COL-2
overhead. The distillate flowrate (FD2) increases drastically
under disturbance D3 , which makes the liquid level of reflux
drum hard to control. Then it causes the reflux drum to be
full even if the control valve is opened to the maximum as
shown in Fig. 6.
(2) The column temperature as well as the reboiler duty must
change significantly. The temperature of stage 3 in COL-2
(4) (T2, 3 ) is hard to control and rises sharply when facing dis-
turbance D4 as shown in Fig. 7.
(3) The specified purity of EG and MG at the bottom of COL-
(5)
2 (xB2, EG+MG, mol%) is difficult to maintain, and that
will cause the same influences on COL-3 as the two conse-
(6) quences above.
Note that the two distillate streams in COL-1 are important re-
cycles of the whole system. The temperature and purity specifi-
cation of distillate product in COL-1 itself can be controlled well.

Please cite this article as: Y. Peng, J. Zhu and L. Dang et al., Plantwide control structure design of a complex hydrogenation process with
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Fig. 4. Dynamic response under D1 and D2 (initial CS1).

Fig. 5. The change of MeOH composition in COL-1 bottom under D3 and D4 . Fig. 6. The change of the distillate flowrate of COL-2 under D3 .

However, COL-1 has great influence on COL-2 as well as COL-3

and makes them hard to control due to the strong interactions 3.1.6. Modification of CS1
and integrated effects among units. Therefore, COL-1 is the core In order to reduce the influence of COL-1 and improve the per-
to achieve effective control for the whole system. Its great impact formance of the whole system, the initial CS1 is modified using a
on downstream process should also be considered. cascade control scheme as shown in Fig. 8.

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dition, the bottom composition in COL-2 (xB2, EG+MG, mol%) and

Fig. 7. The change of the temperature of stage 3 in COL-2 under D4 .
In COL-l, a composition controller is added to maintain the
composition of MeOH in the bottom by manipulating the setpoint
of the temperature controller. The controller parameters are tuned
with KC = 0.03997 and τ I = 22.44 min. The methanol composition
transmitter range is 0.01–0.08 in mole fraction with a setpoint of
0.0556. The controller output is 68.5 °C with a range of 60–78 °C.
Fig. 9 shows the response of main control loops in the presence
of larger throughput disturbance D3 and D4 . The solid lines repre-
sent a 5% increase in throughput, and the dashed lines represent a
5% decrease. The response of other control loops is given in Fig. A3.
As shown in the figures, the CS1 presents stable regulatory
control after the modification. The temperature of COL-1 has a
slight change to maintain the methanol composition at the bot-
tom through the cascade control structure. An effective control of
the MeOH impurity in COL-1 bottom enhances the control perfor-
mance of COL-2 and COL-3. The temperatures in COL-2 and COL-3
are better controlled with less response time and deviation. In ad-
COL-3 (xB3, EG, wt%) are also well controlled near the required
specifications.
Composition disturbance D6 and D7 are also introduced to the
control system. The dynamic response of main control loops is
shown in Fig. 10. The response of other control loops is given in
Fig. A4. The results show that efficient control is also achieved
under both two composition disturbances. Temperatures in the
reactor and three distillation columns are well controlled. More-
over, the purity specifications of xD1 (MeOH, mol%), xB2 (EG+MG,
mol%) and xB3 (EG, wt%) are maintained quite close to the target
values.
In the face of disturbance D6 , less DMO in the fresh feed con-
sumes less fresh H2 . Therefore, the flash throughput, and the purge
flowrate, the product flowrates in distillation columns decrease
correspondingly. As for disturbance D7 , the composition of CO in
the H2 recycle stream (xRe-H2 , CO, mol%) increases rapidly due to
the accumulation under the disturbance. And the purge flowrate
increases correspondingly to reduce the CO composition. It re-
sults in higher loss of the hydrogen in the recycle stream. Con-
sequently, the H2 feed flowrate (FH2 ) increases from 537.89 kmol/h
to 573.34 kmol/h.
3.2. Control structure CS2
In the former section, it is concluded that COL-1 is of crucial
importance to the controllability of the system. And in the control
structure CS2, several different criteria including sensitivity crite-
rion and singular value decomposition (SVD) criterion are used to
select more appropriate temperature control scheme in distillation

Fig. 8. Modified CS1; cascade control in COL-1.

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Fig. 9. The dynamic response under D3 and D4 (Modified CS1).

columns to enhance the control performance [28,29]. The details
are given in supporting information. The results show that stage
20 in COL-1 is appropriate to be controlled by manipulating the
reboiler heat input. The parameters of the temperature controller
of stage 20 in COL-1 are tuned with KC = 1.677 and τ I = 9.24 min.
In the face of disturbances, more efficient control is achieved by
CS2 compared with the initial CS1, which demonstrates the effec-
tiveness of sensitivity criterion and SVD criterion on the selection
of appropriate tray for column temperature control.
Composition disturbance D6 and D7 are also introduced to CS2.
The dynamic response of main loops is shown in Fig. 12. The re-
sponse of other loops is shown in Fig. A6. In the presence of both
two composition disturbances, temperatures in the reactor and
three distillation columns are well controlled by CS2. Moreover, the
purity specifications of three columns are maintained quite close to
their designed values.
3.3. Control structure CS3

Based on CS2, a feedforward ratio control structure is developed

3.2.1. Dynamic response of CS2
Fig. 11 shows the response results of main control loops under
throughput disturbance D3 and D4 . The solid lines are for a 5% in-
crease, and the dashed lines are for a 5% decrease. The response of
other control loops is given in Fig. A5. The results show that the
CS2 gives stable control when facing throughput disturbances.
so that the flowrate of H2 feed can change more quickly follow-
ing the change of DMO feed flowrate. As shown in Fig. 13, a ra-
tio controller between DMO feed flowrate and H2 feed flowrate is
added. Besides, a composition controller of H2 in the reactor out-
let is used to correct the mole ratio of H2 to DMO. Therefore, af-
ter an immediate and quick response by the ratio control, the H2

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Fig. 10. The dynamic response under D6 and D7 (Modified CS1).

feed flowrate will be precisely fine-tuned through the composition
controller of H2 in the reactor outlet. The ratio controller manip-
ulates the setpoint of the H2 feed flowrate controller, which is on
“cascade”. The parameters of the composition controller are tuned
with KC =0.49693 and τ I =21.12 min. The range of H2 composition
transmitter is 0.5–0.8 in mole fraction with a setpoint of 0.6792.
The controller output range is 0.8–7.6 with a steady-state value of
4.2504 which is the set point of the ratio controller.
3.3.1. Dynamic response of CS3
Fig. A7 gives the response of the control system under through-
put disturbance D3 and D4 . The solid lines are for a 5% increase;
the dashed lines are for a 5% decrease. The results show that ef-
fective control is achieved by CS3. Moreover, compared to CS2,
the times required for many control loops to reach a new steady
state are shortened and the transient deviations are significantly
reduced owing to the feedforward control scheme, such as H2

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Fig. 11. The dynamic response under D3 and D4 (CS2).

composition in reactor outlet (xH2 ), bottom purity specification in
COL-2 (xB2), MeOH product in COL-1 (xD1) and EG product com-
position (xB3). The comparison of some control loops between CS2
and CS3 is given in Fig. 14.
The dynamic response of CS3 under composition distur-
bance D6 and D7 is shown in Fig. A8. The results also
identify the robustness of the CS3 when facing composition
disturbances.
4. Control performance assessment
In this section, two criteria are used to evaluate the control
performance of the proposed control structures, including the
deviation from the production rate target (DPT) and the integral
absolute error (IAE) in product purity.
DPT proposed by Vasudevan and Rangaiah [30] is an indirect
economic measure based on the production rate. It is computed

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Fig. 12. The dynamic response under D6 and D7 (CS2).

as: that the production rate should quickly reach the new target un-
 der throughput changes (D1 -D4 ), and it should return to the orig-
ts
inal level quickly under composition disturbances (D5 -D7 ). And a
DPT = (Actual production rate − Target production rate) dt
t=0 positive value of DPT indicates overproduction, while a negative
(7) value indicates underproduction. Therefore, a lower magnitude of
deviation from the desired production rate target indicates better
Where ts is the time taken for the control system to reach a new performance of the PWC system, which means a smaller amount
steady state after the onset of a disturbance [30]. It is required of overproduction (underproduction).

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Fig. 13. Control structure CS3; feedforward ratio control.

Fig. 14. Comparison of response under disturbance D3 between CS2 and CS3.

For a control structure, IAE indicates the ability to maintain
the product quality and minimize the off-specification production
when facing disturbances [30]. Hence a smaller magnitude of IAE
is desirable and ideally it should be zero. The IAE is computed as:
ts
IAE = |(Actual product purity − Required product purity)|dt
t=0
(8)
The production rate and purity of final product EG are the most
important variables in the entire process. The results for DPT and
IAE of the EG product in the face of disturbance D1 -D7 are shown
in Table 4.
For most disturbances, especially the throughput disturbance
D1 -D4 , CS3 has lower absolute DPT values owing to the feedfor-
ward ratio control. And in terms of the total absolute DPT value,
the CS3 also shows the best performance.

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Table 4
DPT and IAE for CS1, CS2 and CS3 in the face of D1 –D7 .

Disturbance No. DPT (kmol of EG) IAE

CS1 CS2 CS3 CS1 CS2 CS3

D1 −2.7771 −2.7937 −2.6206 0.002 0.0022 0.0015

D2 2.8423 2.8562 2.692 0.0012 0.0022 0.0016
D3 −6.7981 −5.5132 −5.0726 0.0011 0.0046 0.003
D4 5.6859 5.7148 5.5325 0.0 0 08 0.0064 0.0045
D5 −2.7633 −3.1836 −3.3410 0.0 0 09 0.0015 0.0016
D6 −5.5402 −5.7607 −6.0979 0.001 0.0035 0.0036
D7 −0.5506 −0.29 0.2812 0.0 0 03 0.0 0 03 0.0045
Total (absolute) value 26.9575 26.1122 25.6378 0.0073 0.0207 0.0203

Under all disturbances, the IAE values are very low. The CS1 has
slightly lower IAE values due to the cascade composition control
loop in COL-1. And the results are very close between CS2 and CS3.
In general, all the three control structures are efficient to maintain
final EG purity in the face of disturbances.

5. Conclusion

In this work, the PWC structures of a DMO hydrogenation pro-

cess to produce EG were explored. This four-recycle process pre-
sented great challenges due to interactions and integrated effects.
Firstly, the initial control structure CS1 had small resistance ability
to disturbances. Then, the CS1 was modified with a cascade control
scheme and showed good control performance. Besides, efficient
control was also achieved by CS2 through using different tempera-
ture control scheme in distillation columns. Moreover, the control
structure CS3 was also developed based on CS2, in which a feed-
forward ratio control was applied to correct the feed flowrate mo-
lar ratio of H2 to DMO. And the results show that the response
time and transient deviation for many control loops are signifi-
cantly reduced compared to CS2. Finally, the control performances
of the proposed control structures were assessed using two crite-
ria referred to DPT and IAE. In terms of the DPT, CS3 has the best
control performance with a lower magnitude of deviation from the
desired production rate target. The IAE results show that all the
control structures are efficient to maintain EG purity in the face of
disturbances.

Acknowledgement

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding
agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Supplementary materials

Supplementary material associated with this article can be

found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.jtice.2019.01.032.

Appendix A

(Figs. A1–A8).

Fig. A1. Temperature profile (a) COL-1; (b) COL-2; (c) COL-3.

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Fig. A2. The response for other control loops under D1 and D2 (initial CS1).

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Fig. A3. The response for other control loops under D3 and D4 (modified CS1).

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Fig. A4. The response for other control loops under D6 and D7 (modified CS1).

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Fig. A5. The response for other control loops under D3 and D4 (CS2).

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Fig. A6. The response for other control loops under D6 and D7 (CS2).

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Fig. A7. The dynamic response under D3 and D4 (CS3).

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Fig. A7. Continued

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Fig. A8. The dynamic response under D6 and D7 (CS3).

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Fig. A8. Continued

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