Production of Butyl Acetate by Catalytic Distillation. Theoretical and Experimental Studies

Abstract

The esterification reaction of acetic acid with n-butanol in a continuous catalytic distillation system has been studied. The products of esterification reactionsviz, water and butyl acetates are separated by distillation during the course of the reaction, to overcome the equilibrium limitations. A 3-m-tall column with reactive and nonreactive zones, packed with a commercial catalytic packing (KATAPAK-S) and noncatalytic wire gauze packing, was used for this purpose. For a feed concentration corresponding to that obtained in a one-stage continuously stirred tank reactor at reaction equilibrium, conversion of ∼100% was realized, with selectivity on the order of 99%. Interestingly, in most of the experiments, the bottom stream contained butyl acetate that was almost free of acetic acid. The influence of various operating parameters, such as feed flow rate, feed composition, feed location, and boil-up rate, on the conversion, selectivity, and separation was studied. A dynamic equilibrium stage model was developed and solved to predict the transient and steady-state results. Reasonably good agreement between the experimental and simulation results was realized.

Catalytic distillation for esterification of acetic acid with ethanol: promising SS‐fiber@HZSM‐5 catalytic packings and experimental optimization via response surface methodology

“…To address the effect of reactant residence time that is controlled by the WHSV (calculated by dividing the flow rate of acetic acid by the overall catalyst weight), molar feed ratio of acetic acid to ethanol was fixed at 2 as well as other operational parameters such as reflux ratio at 1.5 and reboiler duty at 240 °C. Figure (B) shows the efficiency of catalytic esterification and distillation against the WHSV, indicating that CD performance is strongly dependent on the reactant residence time (i.e.…”

Reactive Distillation: Modeling, Simulation, and Optimization

“…RD uses cation-exchange resin for many liquid-phase homogeneous catalyst reactions such as butyl acetate synthesis and helps in separating catalyst during downstream processing. The investigation of many such reactions is reported [15][16][17]. Transesterification for synthesis and characterization of biodiesel from different raw material such as palm oil, mustard oil, etc.…”

Synthesis of High‐Purity Methylal via Extractive Catalytic Distillation

“…The feed rate strongly influences the residence time of the reactants inside the reactive zone [21], thus affecting the performance of the catalytic distillation column. According to literature data [22], methylal and methanol form a minimum boiling azeotrope, and a preliminary test demonstrated that the azeotrope, boiling at 39.1°C (684 mmHg), consisted of 7.0 wt-% methanol.…”