Reactive batch distillation of ethyl acetate : dynamic simulation and experimental validation

Abstract

Reactive distillation is a multi-functional unit operation combining chemical reactor and distillation column in a single unit. Fatty acid esterification is increasingly realized as a reactive distillation (RD) process because of its formation being affected by the chemical equilibrium. In this work, a detailed mathematical dynamic rate-based model of reactive batch distillation column is formulated for ethyl acetate synthesis and presented as a system of differential and algebraic equations (DAEs). The developed model is then solved to obtain the detailed column dynamics. The simulation results provide the dynamics of reboiler and distillate compositions, ethyl acetate purity in the accumulated distillate and conversion of the reactants. These simulation results are compared with experimental data, and it indicates a very good agreement. The developed model is then applied to formulate dynamic optimization problem in order to derive the optimum operating policy, reflux profile.