OP-II-3

OP-II-15Flow (L/h)7654321Bottoms rateDistillate rate00 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 RtotReflux ratioAcetal fraction in the bottoms0,00 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 RtotFigure 1: Volumetric flow rate and acetal concentration in the outputs.5 Katapak SP-11 modules.1,00,90,80,70,60,50,40,30,20,1Reflux ratioAcetal in bottomsAcetal in distillate0,0250,0200,0150,0100,0050,000Acetal fraction in the distillateOnce the experimental work was finished, a steady state reactive distillationmodel based on conventional MESH equations was developed in order to gainfurther insights and to predict results without carrying out additional experiments.Every stage was considered adiabatic and non-ideal liquid mixture behaviour wasconsidered (NRTL model was chosen as the most suitable one [3]). A totalcondenser was supposed and the possibility of two different feed points was takeninto account. First of all, the model was validated with experimental data andafterwards several column configurations were tested in order to find the mostappropriate one. One interesting conclusion is that the model explains how thereverse reaction can influence when catalytic section is too high. The model is alsoable to simulate the change from direct to forward reaction in the lowest part of thereacting section due to the high acetal concentrations (above the equilibrium ones)that come from the catalytic upper part.References[1]. M.R. Capeletti, L. Balzano, et all. Appl. Catal. (2000) 198 L1-L4[2]. I. Agirre, V.L. Barrio, B. Güemez, J.F. Cambra. and P.L. Arias., IJCRE. (To be published)[3]. T.M. Letcher, G.G. Redhi, S.E. Radloff, U. Domanska, J. Chem. Eng. Data (1996), 41, 707-712.AcknowledgementsThe authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support by the Spanish Ministry ofScience and Technology (ENE2006-15116-C04-03/CON), the Basque Government (IE06-171) and the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Besides, the authors want tomention the collaboration of Rohm & Haas for kindly supplying different Ambestlyst resins.127