Mathematical Modeling and Simulation for Production of MTBE

Chapter Two Literature Survey
Figure(2-4) Processing schemes for the esterification reaction
MeOH + AcOH ↔ MeOAc + H 2O
(a) conventional processing scheme consisting of one reactor followed by
nine distillation columns. (b) the reactive distillation configuration
(Taylor R. and Krishna R., 1985).
2.3.2 The Constraints:
The constraints on using reactive distillation are:
1. Reactive distillation is not suitable for every process where reaction and
separation steps occur. Operating conditions, such as pressure and
temperature of reactive and separation process and perhaps other
requirement, must overlap in order to assure the feasibility of combined
process. In some processing the optimum conditions of temperature and
pressure for distillation may be far from optimal condition for reaction and
vice versa. This limitation can be overcome by fixing adequate operating
conditions in the cases where this is possible.
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