Rate Acceleration of 2-Methyl-1-Butanol Dehydration in a Reactive Distillation Column.

Abstract

Reactive distillation was used as a method to accelerate the reaction rate of 2-methyl-1-butanol (2M1BOH) dehydration. Since it is strongly inhibited by water, the trade-off between reaction rate and liquid-vapour mass transfer was investigated under experimental input variables, such as reboiler heat duty, the mass of the catalyst and reflux ratio. The reaction rate variations inside the column were simulated by using the equilibrium model of the ASPEN PLUS simulator. The effectiveness of reactive distillation was justified by the comparison of its performance with corresponding conventional reactors. A saving of 80% in reboiler heat duty was found when a decanter was added to the column. An industrial scale simulation was done to optimise the proposed process.