Pervaporation Membrane-Catalytic Reactors for Isoamyl Acetate Production

Abstract

This study reports the analysis and design of a liquid phase esterification process to convert acetic acid with isoamyl alcohol into isoamyl acetate via reactive pervaporation, in the presence of an Amberlite IR-120 ion exchange resin catalyst. To accomplish this, a catalytic reactor is coupled with a separation membrane unit (Pervaporation Membrane Reactor (PVMR)). In the proposed unit, the chemical reaction equilibrium is favorably shifted towards isoamyl acetate formation by removing water with the help of a separation membrane. The study is developed by using relevant thermodynamics, kinetics, and membrane transport models, and by considering different catalytic reactor-pervaporator membrane configurations such as: (a) a two-step continuous fixed bed-pervaporator process (FBR+PVMU), (b) a two-step continuous slurry reactor-pervaporator process (SR+PVMU), (c) a single-step integrated fixed bed-pervaporator reactor (IFBPVMR), and d) a single step integrated slurry-pervaporator reactor (ISPVMR). The performance of the PVMRs is evaluated by using a R recycle ratio, a Ω membrane area to reactor volume ratio, and Da Damköhler dimensionless parameters. From the various proposed configurations, it is shown that the integrated plug flow reactor-pervaporation reactor (IFBPVMR) provides the best performance. On the basis of various simulations and design charts developed in the present study, operational conditions leading to optimum ester yields as high as 0.94 are predicted. These results provide a valuable prospect for the industrial scale-up and implementation of isoamyl acetate production units.