Process Simulation of cyclohexyl formate production with an atmospheric reaction-vacuum distillation integrated system

A novel atmospheric reaction-vacuum distillation integrated system was proposed to produce cyclohexyl formate by coupling distillation column with side reactors (DCSR), and the reaction and distillation temperatures can be controlled independently to avoid formic acid decomposition above 60℃. The effects of catalyst loading, reboiler duty, number of side reactors (NR) and tray number of stripping (NS) section were simulated. The results show that when the flow rate of cyclohexene and formic acid are 10 mol·h^-1, suitable DCSR process parameters for cyclohexyl formate production are: number of side reactors 2, tray numbers 7, reboiler duty 130 W, catalyst loading capacity 0.6 kg and distillation pressure 10 kPa. When the reaction capacity and the separation capacity are under the best matching conditions, the amount of catalyst used in the DCSR process is only 30% of the traditional reactive distillation process. Catalyst efficiency can be improved and equipment and production costs can be reduced.