SIMULATION OF CONTINUOUS REACTIVE DISTILLATION COLUMN

       The present work is concerned with constructing a computer program to simulate the analysis of multi-component, multistage continuous reactive distillation processes.The rigorous method was used to build computer programs simulation for non ideal mixtures. The MATLAB  program as listed in appendix (D-1,2).The computer programs validity and accuracy were checked with Suzuki [5] using the esterification of acetic acid with ethanol to produce ethyl acetate and water.The influence of various parameters upon the performance of the continuous reactive distillation column was studied. The parameters include feed plate location, reflux ratio, and number of stages. The influence of each parameter upon the distillation accompanied with chemical reaction was studied through vapor and liquid profiles, temperature profile, liquid composition and reaction rate profile.The result obtained for the one feed reaction distillation column (esterification of acetic acid and ethanol to produce ethyl acetate and water, as an example) show that the purity of ethyl acetate is 48.70 % mole, when the reflux ratio is 10, the number of stages is 13 and the feed stage is 6. For a feed composition (acetic acid 0.4962, ethanol 0.4808, water 0.0229, ethyl acetate 0.0001). The result obtained for the two feed reaction distillation column (esterification of acetic acid and ethanol to produce ethyl acetate and water, as an example) show that the purity of ethyl acetate increases 52.20 mole %when the reflux ratio is 10, the number of stages is 13 and the feed stage is 6.For a feed composition (acetic acid 1.0, ethanol 0.85, water 0.15).