Discussion on the alkylation pretreatment section
Thread Content
In alkylation pretreatment, methanol is generally removed through washing, and then carbon triols and dimethyl ether are removed. I read somewhere that dimethyl ether is miscible with methanol; so could the purity of methanol in the washing tower be increased to allow for the absorption of some dimethyl ether? Assuming that there is no issue with excessive levels of carbon triols, could the light-end removal tower be shut down?
In addition to affecting acid consumption, dimethyl ether also impacts the yield of alkylated oil, by up to 2%. This is a bit confusing – does it mean that the olefins are converted into other substances that end up in the sulfuric acid?