Overview

The fractionation process of oleochemical products in Malaysia normally use conventional distillation columns (DCs). Because of considerable amount of energy used in the separation process, there is a need to have an intensified process to improve the efficiency of distillation processes.

Dividing-wall column (DWC) is an attractive option which offers big advantages especially for separating multi-component mixtures with reduced cost and energy consumption. However, research on its feasibility for oleochemical fractionation is scarce. In this paper, we conduct a model based performance analysis of DWC for oleochemical fatty acid fractionation.

The model was designed and developed using a customized four column configurations in Aspen Plus. A step by step design procedure was introduced to aid the model development. Based on the model, economic and environmental assessment was performed and compared with conventional DCs. Apart from that, hydraulic analysis was also performed to gain insights on the column hydrodynamic behavior.

Such a study is important especially during the early stage of technology development prior to industrial implementation.

Speaker

Dr Ing Mohamad Rizza Othman, CEng MIChemE, Senior Lecturer

Dr Ing Mohamad Rizza Othman, CEng MIChemE is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Chemical Engineering Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP). He received BSc and MSc in Chemical Engineering from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in 2002 and 2005 respectively. From 2008-2011, under Malaysian Government scholarship, he took a doctorate degree at the Chair of Process Dynamics and Operation (DBtA), Technical University of Berlin (TUB), Germany. In 2011, Dr Ing Rizza finished his Doktorarbeit which lead to a German doctorate engineering degree Dr. Ing. (Doktor der Ingenieurwissenschaften). In 2018, he obtained CEng certification and is currently a member of IChemE.

Currently Dr Ing Rizza’s main topic of research interests include sustainability assessment of chemical, biochemical and pharmaceutical processes as well as modelling, simulation, control and optimization of chemical processes. Other than that, he is also interested in the area of safety analysis and multi criteria decision making. Since 2005, Dr Ing Rizza has published 22 papers, presented in 35 conferences and 4 exhibitions contributions in various research area including sustainable development, process modelling, safety and education. He has been invited to give talks at National University Singapore as well as MPOB’s event such as POMREQ and PIPOC.

He has graduated 4 Master students and is currently supervising 4 postgraduate students. He leads several research and education grants amounted to half a million besides involve in several project consultations on design of chemical processes especially pilot plant scale. He has more than 10 years’ experience using computer aided tools for modeling and simulation works such as Aspen Plus, Aspen Dynamics, iCON as well as MATLAB, LaTeX and VB.

The material presented has not been peer-reviewed. Any opinions are the presenter’s own and do not necessarily represent those of IChemE or the Palm Oil Processing Special Interest Group. The information is given in good faith but without any liability on the part of IChemE.