The consortium consisting of the companies BP Chemicals (Great Britain), Hoechst (Germany), BASF (Germany), Snamprogetti (Italy), Neste Oy (Finland) and universities of Clausthal (Germany), Dortmund (Germany), Aston (Great Britain), Bath (Great Britain) and Helsinki University of Technology (Finland) has just finished the three-year project "Reactive distillation" initiated by SUSTECH and supported by EU in the frame of the BRITE-EURAM program. The paper presents an overview of the achievements gained in the project. The authors of this paper are only representatives of a group of over 20 researchers involved in the project.