Macrokinetics Study Of Isobutene Hydration In Mixed C4 Hydrocarbons

The mixed C4 hydrocarbon is not well utilized in China so far, and most of them are burned as fuel. Among its chemical utilizations, production of tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) by isobutene hydration is an economically efficient way. Therefore, the macrokinetics study of isobutene (IB) hydration catalyzed by ion-exchange resin is very important for the production of tert-butyl alcohol in fixed bed, stirred tank reactor and reactive distillation column.In this work, miscibilities and azeotropic characteristics of mixture of IB, water and TBA has been analyzed. The effects of cosolvent TBA on IB hydration reaction in a fixed bed reactor have been researched. The macrokinetic experiments were tested on the basis of the exclusion of external diffusion. The effects of reaction temperature, water-to-oil ratio, catalyst loading and initial IB concentration were investigated. The Langmuir-Hinshelwood-Hougen-Watson (LHHW) and the Eley-Rideal (ER) kinetic models were established based on the mechanism of IB hydration reaction and the typical model parameters were determined by fitting the experimental data. It showed that the LHHW kinetic model is more suitable and its predictions were in good agreement with the experimental data.