The Study On Catalytic Distillation Of Methyl Acetate Hydrolysis

As the early work to build the new art of catalytic distillation hydrolysis of methyl acetate, a non-equilibrium rate model and the calculation method based on it was established. The influences of the mole ratio of water feed to methyl acetate feed, reflux feed to methyl acetate feed and the feeding position on conversion and concentration of acetic acid in bottom feed are examined through simulation. These results are good guide to the industrialization experiments, and provid basis for the industrial design.The industrialization experiment of the catalytic distillation hydrolysis of methyl acetate was carried out by the Chemical Engineering Institute of Hebei University of Technology. In the experiments the CTST were used in the catalytic distillation column in the polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) industry production process of 35,000 t/y. We got the operation term of the industry production process that connect down through the industrialization experiments: the methyl acetate feed 8m3/h, H2O/MeOAc (mol/mol) 3.0, reflux/MeOAc 3.0.The conversion of methyl acetate is higher than 70% and 140,000 ton steams were saved per year.The experiment data were in good agreement with the calculated results, proving that the non-equilibrium rate model and the calculation method based on it are reliable. It is concluded that this model can be helpful to the industry production through controlling the variables.