A novel intensified reactive distillation process to produce pure ethyl acetate in one column—Part I: Parametric study

Production of pure ethyl acetate (EtAc) is a difficult and heavy energy consuming process. In this work, a novel reactive distillation (RD) process for EtAc production intensified by the hydration of ethylene oxide (EO), as an auxiliary reaction, is proposed for removing the EtAc/water azeotrope. Impacts of three important parameters, i.e., ethanol (EtOH) flow rate, EO flow rate and reflux ratio on temperature and component compositions along the RD column are investigated to achieve an optimal process design. The proposed RD process predicts the pure EtAc and ethylene glycol (EG) with low energy requirements. The results show that the proper feed rates of EtOH, EO and acetic acid are 0.45 mol/s, 0.45 mol/s and 0.42 mol/s, respectively, when the reflux ratio is 3.5.