Batch Distillation Optimisation

[Asadwaheed]

Hi Eng Tippers,
This is my first ever post and I wanted to stay away from doing what most people do by asking a really broad question however this is quite an open ended topic.
I have recently started work on a batch distillation and the set up is that of a pot and a condenser. The pot has a cooling jacket around it however it doesn't seem to be as effective as it once was. It has a turbine set up within the pot also. I'm just looking to brainstorm with a variety of the members on potential improvement ideas such as an addition of a glycol chilling unit to create better cooling. From past batches, they have seemed to run for much less time when the outside temperature has been low.
I was thinking of simulating the process on Aspen but didn't really know what I would be trying to achieve with this. The reaction taking place is an Azeotropic distillation of water toluene and an organic compound. The current set up hasn't got proper process control as of yet and was wondering if this is a route I should push towards management. If anyone knows any good process control companies in the UK feel free to recommend.
The distillation is currently taking around 420 minutes for a total mass of 15,000 kg per batch, is this a good industry average? It seemed too long to me and is really proving to be a bottleneck in the process.
Any direction towards good literature for optimisation of distillation columns would be much appreciated, Im not looking for all the answers just a friendly push in the right direction.

 

[ajs1972]

Hello you can check "Handbook of Separation Techniques for Chemical Engineers" from Schweitzer. By the other hand, you are right, one of the most important topics, are the pressure control, lowering temperature in condenser, one question, is above atmospheric pressure or in vacuum operation??

I have ran some simulations in Aspen Plus for steam batch distillation, and the efficiency and time of the process can be optimized, lowering the condenser temperature or increasing the vacuum, at least in the process that I simulated.

Regards.