Catalytic Reactive Distillation for the Esterification Process: Experimental and Simulation

Abstract

In the present study, methyl acetate has been synthesized using esterification of acetic acid with methanol in a continuous packed bed catalytic reactive distillation col- umn in the presence of novel Indion 180 ion exchange resin solid catalyst. The experiments were conducted at various operating conditions like reboiler temperature, reflux ratio, and different feed flow rates of the acetic acid and methanol. The non-ideal pseudo-homogeneous kinetic model has been developed for esterification of acetic acid with methanol in the presence of Indion 180 catalyst. The developed kinetic model was used for the simulation of the reactive distillation column for the synthesis of methyl acetate using equilibrium stage model in Aspen Plus version 7.3. The simulation results were compared with experimental results, and found that there is a good agreement between them. The sensitivity analyses were also carried out for the different parameters of bot- tom flow rate, feed temperatures of acetic acid and methanol, and feed flow rate of acetic acid and methanol.

Keywords

• catalyst
• esterification
• reactive distillation
• reflux ratio
• mathematical model
• simulation