LAUSR

Abstract Several reactive hybrid distillation configurations are demonstrated for the n-butyl acetate production via transesterification with two blending reactive feeds, namely MM20 (70 wt% methanol, 30 wt% methyl acetate) and MM80 (35 mol% methanol, 65 mol% methyl acetate). Pervaporation (PV) with polyoctylmethylsiloxane membrane is used to replace a methanol recovery column because what’s obtained at the retentate side is high purity methanol rather than methyl acetate. The valid mathematical model for this PV process is developed in Aspen Custom Modeler. These configurations along with conventional reactive distillation (CRD) and reactive dividing-wall distillation (RDWC) are optimized by a sequential iterative algorithm based on the minimum total annual cost (TAC). The comparison with CRD shows that RDWC + PV is the optimal alternative of two hybrid configurations for MM80, saving 40.8% operating cost, 32.6% TAC, and 48.77% CO2 emissions. However, other two hybrid configurations for MM20 are unable to achieve the desired energy-saving.