I think of it as you have more liquid pump around you will have more pressure drop across that section of the column section, check you dp across the column sections with a pressure survey.
Lieberman books mentioned similar case of vacuum loss with a precondenser in the top.
You are right more vapors needs more reflux to cool it and less reboil.
You specified the top concentration as fixed, but your RECOVERY in the top of your product will go up (quantity of your product) as you vaporize more you can rectify more.
In reality your limitation is the top cooling...
If it's indeed flooding then reducing the feed rate will eliminate this. Just reduce the unit feed rate in steps and observe the column operation and Dp the flooding should stop and column operation will improve. Column scans can be expensive.
It sounds you have a downcomer flooding (Backup)...
In the oil industry usually we keep the stream temperature for the rundown 20F lower then the flash point temperature of that hydrocarbon stream. But in RV you have to consider the firing case when the PSV or RV should be sized to handle a fire case scenario in the vessel. The liquid will...
Hi,
I worked in a methanol company that used natural gas as feed source and for fueling as well.
The gas pressure was about 67 bar(g) and reduced to 22 bar(g). We had to first heat the gas up in a U-tube heat exchanger with L.P steam. This will ensure that the gas will always be above its dew...