화학공학소재연구정보센터
Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan, Vol.32, No.3, 280-287, 1999
Reactive distillation for synthesizing ethyl tert-butyl ether from bioethanol
Reactive distillation, a configuration in which the reaction section is located inside the column, is employed to continuously synthesize ethyl tert-butyl ether (abbreviated as ETBE) from bioethanol(2.5 mol% ethanol in aqueous solution) and tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) using Amberlyst 15 in pellet form as a catalyst, Results under standard operating conditions indicate that ETBE at about 60 mol% can be obtained in the distillate, and almost pure water in the residue. The conversion of TEA and the selectivity of ETBE are 99.9 and 35.9 %, respectively. The effects of operating conditions on conversion and selectivity are also investigated. Further purification of the distillate using the residue results in 95 mol% ETBE, The experimental results are compared with the results calculated by using an ASPEN PLUS simulator.