Technical Study On Catalytic Reactive Distillation Of N-Butyl Acetate Synthesis

N-butyl acetate is of excellent performance as an organic solvent, which is widely used in the pharmacy and the painting. Conventionally, sulfuric acid is often used as catalyst in the esterification of acetic acid. But many problems exist, such as too much secondary reaction, serious corrosion, complicated final treatment and pollution. The process of catalytic reactive distillation of n-butyl acetate synthesis with strong acidic cation exchange resin was studied in this thesis. And the process of reaction and separation was finished simultaneously in reaction distillation column. The result shows that the order of influence extent of various factors is:material molar ratio, feed flow rate, reaction time, reaction temperature; Solid acid catalyst can be reused and recycled as well as non-pollution for environment. The best conditions for reactive distillation experiment are as follows:Acetic acid and butanol are mixed feeding, feeding temperature is 105℃-110℃, feed flow rate is about 800ml/h, material molar ratio is 1:1.1, reaction time is 2.5h, reaction temperature is 105℃, the temperature of top column is 95℃. In this condition, acetic acid conversion is 89.6%, ester content is 95.4%, which have achieved good effect. Besides, high gravity technology was firstly applied in reactive distillation process to overcome the restriction of conventional gravity for reactive distillation technology. The synthesis of n-butyl acetate was carried out in a novel rotating packed bed (RPB) with the catalyst as RPB packing for the first time, and the effect of RPB rotating speed was mainly investigated. With the increase of the RPB rotor speed, acetic acid conversion and ester content of top and bottom of tower all exist a top point. The most appropriate rotating speed is 700-800rpm, the acetic acid conversion rate is over 88%, and ester content of products is 75.02%, which provides a reliable experimental basis for high gravity technology applied in reactive distillation process. Comparative tests showed in the same experiment conditions, acetic acid conversation rate of catalytic distillation experiment is 60% which was far inferior to the RPB experiment and the difference of product ester content between the two experiments was over 20%. The results have indicated that the high gravity technology could greatly promote catalyst efficiency which has great superiority in reactive distillation field. Furthermore, the study provides an important basis for the further development of reactive distillation technology and the application of high gravity technology in new fields.