Kinetic Analysis and Simulation of Dicyclopentadiene/Cyclopentadiene Production by Using Reactive Batch Distillation of Pyrolysis Gasoline

Reactive batch distillation combines the advantages of reactive distillation with the flexibility of batch distillation. In this study, the production of cyclopentadiene by cracking dicyclopentadiene in pyrolysis gasoline using reactive batch distillation was studied. The reaction kinetics of dicyclopentadiene cracking were determined by in situ GC-MS analyses, and vapor–liquid equilibrium data were obtained for a multicomponent pyrolysis gasoline mixture at three different temperatures and pressures experimentally by using single-stage distillation steps. The validated reaction kinetics and vapor–liquid equilibrium data were utilized in the Aspen Plus BatchSep module to simulate the reactive batch distillation of cyclopentadiene from pyrolysis gasoline. The effects of operating pressure, steam flow rate, and reflux ratio on the distillation time and recovery ratio were analyzed. Our simulation studies showed that cyclopentadiene with 90 wt % purity can be produced by a single batch distillation column in two steps under 0.9 and 1.5 bar pressure with 76.5% overall yield.