Ivanchuk V. Automation of the distillation process in alcohol production

The dissertation is devoted to the development of methods and algorithms for the operation of the distillation unit to provide a given quality of ethyl alcohol at minimum energy consumption with the identification of the reflux ratio. The analysis of the technological process of obtaining rectified alcohol and the factors influencing on the impurities formation and their extraction at the distillation stage, as well as the analysis of existing automated control systems of DU has shown that the contours of management of these systems are based on indirect measurement indicators that can not provide stably high quality alcohol. The influence of the column reflux ratio on the concentration and quantitative composition of the finished product is investigated and the main channels of automatic regulation (according to the reflux ratio) are determined. The mathematical model of the distillation column has been improved by taking into account the dynamics of the change of the reflux ratio and the concentration of alcohol. The algorithms of identification and regulation of the column reflux ratio for the automated control of the distillation unit are developed. The developed algorithms and automatic control systems can be used for the evacuation, methanol, distillation, refinement, regeneration columns in the food industry, as well as in the rectification columns in the oil refining industry, got further development algorithms for automated control of the BRU, operating under atmospheric and excess pressure.