Study On The Separation Process Of 1-Butanol -Butyl Acetate-Water By Azeotropic Distillation

After analyzing triple azeotrope and vapor-liquid-liquid phase equilibrium, an advanced separation technology of azeotropic distillation using water as entrainer was proposed for separation of azeotropic mixture of 1-butanol, butyl acetate and water.In a certain pharmaceutical factory, mixed menstruum which contained 1-butanol, butyl acetate and water was gained as byproduct when producing penicillin. For the new technology, CHEMDIST was used as calculation method and separation process was simulated with operational data as basic data. The optimum technological parameters and operating parameters were obtained by simulating and optimizing some main operating conditions which affecting azeotropic distillation process, such as the number of theoretical plate, the flow rate of water and triple mixture, feed location and the influence of triple mixture flow rate between two columns etc., meanwhile, the energy using was comprehensively analyzed. And then industrial design was carried out on the basis of optimum results.This new separation technology had been industrialized successful in this factory almost one year. The quality of industrial product was higher than the quality standard required and could reuse in the workshop. The industrial result matched pretty well with that of simulation operation result. Commercial production showed that, the new process possessed some major advantages, separation effect was perfect, the waste of resource was much lower while obtaining higher benefits, reducing the production costs sharply. The economic benefits from this process was almost 16 million yuan(RMB) every year.