Microreactor synthesis of methyl acetate: A comparative study

In the chemical industries, methyl acetate is produced using a reactive distillation system. The methanol conversion for this process is between 70--75% and the methyl acetate production rate is approximately 1,273lb/hr 21. This study investigated the reversible esterification of methanol and acetic acid in a T-mixer glass microreactor and the methanol conversion was observed to have improved by 22--32% when compared to results from macro-plug flow systems. The average methanol conversion was approximately 89% (the highest conversion was 92% and the lowest 86%) for reaction mixtures with catalyst, and 88.1% for reaction mixtures without catalyst, indicating that this reaction approximates an irreversible reaction when carried out in a microreactor with 100mum reaction channels with or without catalyst. The best performance of the microreactor was attained at 40°C, 15.11mL/s feed flow rate, with a methanol conversion of 92.26%, an estimated methyl acetate production rate of 21.28lb/hr and without catalyst. At these conditions, an estimated 59 microreactors are needed in order to match the production of 1,273lb/hr from a reactive distillation system.