Establishment Of Reactive Distillation Process Simulation Based On GPROMS And Analysis Of Methyl Acetate Hydrolysis Process

In recent years, great progress has been made in application of reactive distillation (RD); therefore much higher demanding of RD simulation accuracy is being required. In this work, a three-phase non-equilibrium mathematical model of RD has been developed by employing gPROMS platform to overcome the drawback of the equilibrium model. Model reliability and technology superiority of RD were demonstrated by analyzing simulation results of methyl acetate RD process.Based on the above work and characteristics of the methyl acetate hydrolysis reaction system, a new process to recycle MeOAc, which intensify the MeOAc hydrolysis via methanol dehydration is proposed. The methanol produced during MeOAc hydrolysis is able to participate further in the MeOH dehydration reaction to produce more water. In this work, the RD process of simulation and optimization of methyl acetate hydrolysis was carried out on the basis of the established three-phase non-equilibrium model of RD on gPROMS platform, and analyzed the effective of design and operation parameters to the whole system substantially. Moreover according to the optimal conditions, a more simplified and energy-efficient simulation process of methyl acetate hydrolysis proposed. Simulation results show that the conversion of methyl acetate was greatly improved through the process.