LAUSR

Abstract Ethylene glycol (EG) production utilization syngas via gas-phase dimethyl oxalate (DMO) hydrogenation on a copper-based catalyst is one of the noteworthy techniques and required to be developed. Optimisation of the conversion, selectivity and yield of ethylene glycol production is ineffective due to high operating costs for experimental trials using an experimental based method. The RPLUG reactor model which was associated with desired end product characteristics in Aspen Plus Version 10 simulation software, was therefore applied for sensitivity and multivariable optimisation study. Since the conversion error measured for the development of ethylene glycol relative to experimental literature data was 2.9%, the simulation results obtained were acceptable. The multivariable considered were reaction temperature and pressure, dimethyl oxalate (DMO) concentration, hydrogen to dimethyl oxalate mole ratio (HDMR) and methyl glycolate to dimethyl oxalate mole ratio (MDMR). Sensitivity analysis to specify input variables has shown that the conversion and yield was not effected with the change of MDMR. Thus the, in the optimisation study, that variable was excluded. The multivariable optimisation generated the highest value of conversion, selectivity and yield, in respect of 99.9%, 98% and 99.7%. The optimised variables obtained were 200 °C, 37 bar, 23.6 wt% DMO concentration and 64 of HDMR.