Simulation and Parametric Study of the Innovative Process to Produce High Purity Isopropyl Acetate with Ethylene Oxide Hydration as an Auxiliary Reaction

Abstract

Production of high purity isopropyl acetate by esterification is a difficult process since the equilibrium conversion is relatively low and there are azeotropes between isopropyl acetate with water and between isopropyl acetate with the reactants. In this research, an innovative process to produce high purity isopropyl acetate with auxiliary reaction of ethylene oxide hydration was proposed. The process consisted of a reactor and a simple distillation column. The auxiliary reaction abolished the water/isopropyl acetate azeotrope and shifted the esterification equilibrium to the right. Impacts of the reactor type, the feed temperature, the reflux ratio, and the bottoms rate were investigated by simulating the process in Aspen Plus software. The results revealed that the innovative IpAc production with auxiliary reaction of EO hydration gave very high esterification conversion (up to 99.8%) and very high purity of IpAc (up to 99.7%). These results were achieved when the reactor type was isothermal at feed temperature, the feed temperature was 77°C, the reflux ratio was 1, and the bottoms rate was 10 kmol/h.