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Optimization of Reactive Dividing‐Wall Distillation Column for Ethyl t ‐Butyl Ether Synthesis
Author(s) -
Kaur Jasdeep,
Sangal Vikas K.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
chemical engineering and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.403
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1521-4125
pISSN - 0930-7516
DOI - 10.1002/ceat.201700297
Subject(s) - reactive distillation , chemistry , response surface methodology , distillation , ether , chromatography , organic chemistry
Ethyl t‐ butyl ether (ETBE) was synthesized via reaction of ethanol and isobutene by means of a reactive dividing‐wall distillation column (RDWC). The RDWC was simulated using the RADFRAC model of Aspen Plus. Multi‐response optimization by response surface methodology (RSM) with desirability function approach was applied for maximizing product purities and minimizing energy requirements and CO 2 emissions simultaneously with a constraint that the difference in pressure drop across the dividing wall should be zero. The prediction from the RSM optimization agrees well with the simulation. The optimized RDWC provided an excellent purity of 99.99 mol % of the product ETBE with about one‐third reduction in energy requirements and CO 2 emissions as compared to reactive distillation.