Catalytic distillation (CD) is a process where reaction and separation take place simultaneously in a distillation column. Recently, a new CD process for the aldol condensation of acetone to diacetone alcohol and mesityl oxide was developed in our laboratory. Owing to the unique structure used to support catalysts in the CD column, mass transfer data are needed to model the CD process. The mass transfer behaviour in the CD column has been studied both for the reactive and non-reactive sections of the column in our laboratory. Based on the experimental results, general correlations for the mass transfer coefficients have been established and the 95% confidence intervals for the associated parameters were obtained. The experimental results indicated that the catalyst bags did not play a significant role for the separation between the vapour and liquid phases. The mass transfer correlations developed in this study have been used successfully to model the CD process for the aldol condensation of acetone carried out in our laboratory.La distillation catalytique (DC) est un procede dans lequel la reaction et la separation ont lieu simultanement dans une colonne de distillation. On a recemment mis au point dans notre laboratoire un nouveau procede DC pour la condensation aldol de l'acetone en alcool de diacetone et en oxyde de mesityle. Vu la structure unique utilisee pour supporter les catalyseurs dans la colonne de DC, des donnees de transfert de matiere sont necessaires pour modeliser le procede de DC. Le comportement du transfert de matiere dans la colonne de DC a ete etudie aussi bien pour les sections reactives que non reactives de la colonne dans notre laboratoire. A partir des resultats experimentaux, des correlations generales ont ete etablies pour les coefficients de transfert de matiere et les intervalles de confiance de 95% pour les parametres associes obtenus. Les resultats indiquent que le catalyseur ne joue pas un rBle significatif pour la separation entre les phases vapeur et liquide. Les correlations de transfert de matiere etablies dans cette etude ont ete utilisees avec succes dans la modelisation du procede de DC pour la condensation aldol de I'acetone dans notre laboratoire.Keywords: catalytic distillation, acetone dimerization, mass transfer coefficients and correlations. atalytic distillation (CD) was patented by Smith (1980) C and has been successfully employed in the production of commodity chemicals (Smith, 1990; Marker, 1993; Podrebarac et. al., 1997). To develop new CD processes, experimental studies have been carried out in our laboratory using a pilot-plant CD column. One of our studies is the application of CD for the aldol condensation of acetone. In this study, the catalyst Amberlyst IRA-900 anion exchange resin is packed in fibre glass bags, also known as "Texas teabags" patented by Smith (1980) of Chemical Research and Licensing (CR&L). These catalyst bags are wrapped with demister wire and inserted in the CD column to reduce the pressure drop arising from packing catalyst pellets...
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