Abstract
Biojet-fuel is a promising alternative to reduce emissions in the aviation industry. The alcohol to jet (ATJ) is considered one of the most attractive alternatives. However, the economic feasibility is an important drawback of this process. With this in mind, the process intensification offers an interesting alternative to improve the ATJ process. Nevertheless, in many cases, the intensification could lead to complex equipment that are difficult to operate. This work proposes a novel reactive catalytic distillation column to improve the oligomerization stage of ATJ process. This intensified process was designed using a sensitivity analysis. In order to determine the feasibility of operating this intensified column, a control study using PI controller and model predictive control was performed. The results showed that a reactive distillation column to intensify the oligomerization zone is feasible. This equipment only consumes 200kW. Finally, the control studies indicated that it is possible to operate the column using a traditional feedback control and model predictive control techniques with good performance.