Oral:

The implementation of a plant producing 50,000 tonnes of ethylene oxide per year from raw ethylene was explored in the project evaluating the air inlet system of the plant. After conducting several mini-designs and optimizations it is not advisable to build the plant at its current configuration. While the equivalent annual operating cost (EAOC) was decreased from $82.9 million to $490,000, no profit is being made on the production of the ethylene oxide. After optimization a three compressor series with two inter-stage coolers was found to be the ideal. The best heat exchanger design was found to be a 1-2 floating head, divided flow shell-and-tube exchanger. The ideal pipe size was found to be a size 48 schedule 40. Because ethylene oxide is the only product creating revenue, it is recommended that additional products using ethylene oxide as a starting material also be created in the plant to generate annual profits.