Simulation And Optimization Of The Production Process Of Sodium Tert-butoxide

Sodium tert-butoxide is a kind of important organic alkali,which is commonly used as intermediate in organic synthesis and pharmaceutical.There are some theoretical and laboratory research of the ways and process routes of the synthesis of sodium tert-butyl alcohol,but most of them are not suitable for industrial producing.Genchem&Genpharm(Changzhou)CO.Ltd puts forward an improved method of the synthesis of alkali metal alkoxides.Tank reactor is used in this method,granular sodium tert-butoxide can be produced by this way,and a 5000 tons/year sodium tert-butyl alcohol production device was builded,the production cost comparing with foreign technology was greatly reduced and the industrialization of granular sodium tert-butoxide was realized in this paper.However,there are also some problems in the production of granular sodium tert-butoxide:Firstly,there was a serious power problem of stirring apparatus in tank reactor.Secondly,the single reactor's production time of Sodium tert-butoxide is 30 h.company's production efficiency and economic benefit were influenced by the long production time.Aiming at these problems,the distribution of flow field and velocity,turbulence performance and power consumption were analyzed by numerical simulation in this paper,which provided references for the choose of the stirring apparatus.Aiming at the problem of sodium tert-butoxide's single reactor production time,the reasons of the influences on sodium tert-butoxide's production time was analyzed by experiment,the optimization scheme was put.Firstly,Fluent was used to simulate the tank reactor of sodium tert-butoxide.Through the simulating of six flat blade disc turbine,six flat blade open turbine,45°push-up pitched impeller,45°push-down pitched impeller by Fluent,and the 45°push-up pitched impeller is used currently,their stirring effect and power consumption were analyzed.The stirring capacity of six flat blade open turbine was better than the other impeller,which was most suitable for the production of sodium tert-butoxide.Then,Fluent was used to simulate the tank reactor of sodium tert-butoxide with the six flat blade open turbine.The six flat blade open turbine under different installation height in the reaction kettle was simulated by Fluent,the tank reactor's diameter is lm and the liquid level is also 1m.The flow pattern of fluid was changed from "single circulation" into "double circulation" with the increase of impeller installation height.And the power of impeller is increasing gradually with the increase of impeller installation height.Generally considering,the impeller installation height at 0.35 m was chosen for this tank reactor in this paper.On the same process conditions,the single reactor production time of sodium tert-butoxide was cut down from 30 h to 26.5 h,and the power consumption was reduced by 12%.Through the analysis of sodium tert-butoxide's production time,the reason of long production time was that the long reaction time and long desolvation time in the production of sodium tert-butoxide.Aiming at this problem,some three levels orthogonal tests for three factors was made in this article.Through the orthogonal experiment results,the optimal combination was obtained:the shape of the sodium is filiform,the high boiling solvent is the mixture of trimethylbenzene,stirring method is frequency conversion,vacuum degree is 0.09 MPa with catalyst C,through the experiment,the single reactor production time of sodium tert-butoxide was cut down from 26.5 h to 12.52 h in this condition,producing time was shortened by more than 50%.In this paper,the optimal design scheme was provided for the synthesis of the production technology and equipment of sodium tert-butoxide,the reference data was provided for the production process optimization and energy saving of related products.