The AVN Blog

A major industrial company was investigating a new process for production of a commodity chemical and had concerns about whether the product of the new process would meet the current industry quality specifications. Final purification of the product was done by distillation, so AVN assembled a distillation system capable of… Read More

A chemical producer had a commercial-scale distillation column that either needed to be upgraded or replaced with an improved design. AVN set up several software simulations that modeled the performance of alternative designs and sizes. With that information, potential vendors were contacted, and potential upgrading or replacement costs were developed. These studies… Read More

The patent literature described a catalyst for a carbonylation reaction of potential interest to a customer. AVN set up a stirred pressure reactor capable of carrying out the reaction under CO pressure. The unit was designed for semi-continuous operation, which allowed product to be removed and catalyst to be added during operation. An experimental program… Read More

An equilibrium-limited reaction was identified as a candidate for reactive distillation, which would potentially offer substantially reduced investment and operating costs. The separations were modeled with Aspen Plus, which helped identify several process options for reactive distillation. However, kinetic information on the rates of the catalyzed reactions involved were not known. Laboratory experiments were designed and carried out to investigate… Read More

AVN undertook a project to test the performance of novel catalysts for an alkylation process at pilot scale. A fixed bed catalytic reaction system was designed and constructed, with full automation and safeguards for operating with highly hazardous materials. The unit was safely started up and operated to prove the performance… Read More