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Methyl acetate production by reactive distillation using a vertical plate microdistillator

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Abstract

Micro-distillation is one of the unit operation technologies that are looking toward innovation through on-site and on-demand production system. In this study, a simple structure microdistillator consisting of some plates was applied to reactive distillation, and its potential was investigated. As a target reaction, the heterogeneous esterification between acetic acid and methanol using a solid acid catalyst was employed. The effects of feedstock supply rate, feedstock composition, and device temperature on operation stability and conversion were examined. By controlling the feedstock supply rate and temperature properly, a stable operation with a conversion of approximately 100% was successfully achieved. The amount of methyl acetate produced per weight of catalyst was greater in the reactive distillation using a microdistillator than in the batch reaction, soon after the start of the reaction. Thus, it was demonstrated that the reactive distillation using a microdistillator was able to achieve highly efficient reactions with short reaction time and small amounts of catalyst.

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Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by JSPS KAKENHI, grant number JP16K14457.

Funding

This work was financially supported by JSPS KAKENHI, grant number JP16K14457.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Yosuke Muranaka, Taisuke Maki, Soma Matsumoto & Kazuhiro Mae

Authors
  1. Yosuke Muranaka
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  2. Taisuke Maki
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  3. Soma Matsumoto
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  4. Kazuhiro Mae
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Yosuke Muranaka, Taisuke Maki, and Soma Matsumoto. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Yosuke Muranaka and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Taisuke Maki.

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Conflict of interest

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors. Informed consent not applicable. All authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript. All author declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Article highlights

• A stable reactive distillation was able to be conducted using a simply manufactured vertical plate microdistillator.

• Temperature control of the device was important for a stable operation.

• Higher productivity for esterification than batch reaction system was demonstrated.

Supplementary information

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Supplementary file1 (DOCX 528 KB)

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Muranaka, Y., Maki, T., Matsumoto, S. et al. Methyl acetate production by reactive distillation using a vertical plate microdistillator. J Flow Chem 14, 289–295 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41981-023-00294-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41981-023-00294-w

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