Engineering Commons^™

Process Design: Maleic Anhydride Unit, Valerie Kay, Jacqueline Phillips, Olivia Smithson

Senior Theses

Gamecock Chemical Company has proposed the construction of a maleic anhydride plant at its Houston refinery. The plant is to produce 40,000 metric tons per year of maleic anhydride from a mixture of excess butanes. This design team has been asked to produce a conceptual design, simulation, and profitability analysis for the proposed plant. The simulation software Aspen Plus by AspenTech was the primary software used to design the plant, and the CAPCOST program in Microsoft suite’s Excel was utilized for the economic review of the process.

Maleic anhydride is produced by the thermal oxidation of n-butane at an elevated …

Hazard And Operability Analysis Of An Ethylene Oxide Production Plant, Samantha Ciricillo

Senior Theses

The purpose of this work was to evaluate potential hazards and failures as part of the design and economic analysis for a chemical plant that would produce 150,000 tons of ethylene oxide per year. The Hazard and Operability (HAZOP) method of analysis was used to accomplish this goal. This method of hazard analysis involves brainstorming potential errors in a system by examining each element of each process unit in full detail. This project was focused on the reactor unit because the reactor has several important parameters that could fail, resulting in safety issues within the system. Input for this analysis …