Abstract

The integration of both sensors and simulation in some industrial processes has received a large increase in the recent years, thanks to results such as increase in production indices or improvement in economic indicators. This document describes the development and validation of a simulation-based computer process for generating sulphuric acid. For this process, the data generated by simulation between the fixed beds of a catalytic reactor versus the results obtained using real data from a sulphuric acid production plant in the Antofagasta Region, Chile, have been used. This sulphuric acid production plant is designed for producing 720,000 tons of sulphuric acid annually, with a production capacity of 26 MW, which is used for both its own consumption and the Big North Interconnected System (SING, for its acronym in Spanish) and a sulphur consumption of 240,000 tons/year. For the simulation process, converter input variables such as temperature and gas flow to later observe the oxidation behavior under different operational scenarios were considered. To do it, a working method has been proposed and the software Aspen HYSYS (R) was used for the simulation. The simulation result was validated using design operational data provided by the company. The real results show a 99.9% of adjustment concerning the values obtained using the simulation. Based on the findings, a new operational scenario was created, and the economic indicators of the simulator implementation were determined:NPV=CLP 161,695,000 and IRR=53% with a 6% monthly production increase.