Abstract
In this work, a reactive distillation column in which chemical reactions and separations occur simultaneously is applied for the synthesis of tert-amyl ethyl ether (TAEE) from ethanol (EtOH) and tert-amyl alcohol (TAA). A rate-based kinetic model for liquid-phase etherification and an equilibrium stage model for separation are employed to study the reactive distillation. The calculation is carried out using the commercial software package, Aspen Plus. Simulations are performed to examine the effects of design variables, i.e., a number of rectifying, reaction and stripping stages on the performance of reactive distillation column. It has been found that an optimal column configuration for the TAEE production under the study is designed with no rectifying, 4 reaction and 8 stripping stages. With such an appropriate specification of the reactive distillation column, the effects of various operating variables on the TAA conversion and TAEE selectivity are further investigated and the results have shown that the reflux ratio and operating pressure are the most important factors to the operation of the reactive distillation.
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Abbreviations
- D:
-
total distillate flowrate (=LD+L1) [mol/s]
- D/F:
-
distillate to feed ratio [-]
- F:
-
feed flowrate [mol/s]
- ki :
-
kinetic constant base on mol fraction [mol/(s mol-H+)]
- Ki :
-
equilibrium constant [-]
- LD:
-
liquid distillate flowrate [mol/s]
- L1:
-
liquid flowrate to return from stage 1 to stage 2 [mol/s]
- mr :
-
mass of dry ion-exchange resin [kg]
- Q:
-
ion-exchange capacity (=4.9) [mol-H+/kg-dry resin]
- Qr :
-
reboiler duty [W]
- R:
-
reflux ratio [-]
- ri :
-
reaction rate [mol/(s kg-dry resin)]
- Tc :
-
condenser temperature [K]
- VD:
-
vapor distillate flowrate [mol/s]
- xi :
-
mole fraction of component i [-]
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Sahapatsombud, U., Arpornwichanop, A., Assabumrungrat, S. et al. Simulation studies on reactive distillation for synthesis oftert-amyl ethyl ether. Korean J. Chem. Eng. 22, 387–392 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02719416
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02719416