Use of bifurcation analysis for identification of a safe CSTR operability

Exothermic reactions are the most interesting systems for safety analysis because of their potential safety problems and the possibility of exotic behavior like multiple steady states. An operability and safety analysis of an exothermic reaction (hydrolysis of propylene oxide to tri-propylene glycol with consecutive reactions in a CSTR) with cooling is reported in this work. The information obtained from the bifurcation diagram is used to identify a set of unsafe operation points, which have been chosen on the base of requirement of maximal production of the process. An important information of safe reactor operation is the time in which the operator must handle a critical situation. For this reason, dynamics simulation of a failure in the cooling medium flow rate has been done and discussed for each of the selected operation points.