Study on hybrid pervaporation/distillation process for methyl-isobutyl-ketone synthetic liquid separation

The distillation process for one-step synthesis of methyl-isobutyl-ketone (MIBK) from acetone is analyzed. The existence of small amount water in the feed of MIBK light-ends column causes an unstable operation and further affects the total MIBK separation process. To solve this problem, a hybrid pervaporation/distillation process is put forward, in which the MIBK light-ends column can be eliminated. A small-scale pervaporation experiment with a zeolite NaA membrane which is prepared on the surface of α-Al ₂O ₃, is established to study the membrane separation properties. Aspen Plus software is used to simulate the hybrid pervaporation/distillation process. When the quality and recovery of MIBK product is the same, compared with the traditional distillation process, operating costs and total cost can reduce by 20% and 15%, respectively.