Novel reactive distillation-pervaporation coupled process for ethyl acetate production with water removal from reboiler and acetic acid recycle

Ethyl acetate (EtAc) is an essential raw material widely used in the chemical industry. In this paper, a new reactive distillation (RD)-pervaporation (PV) coupled process for ethyl acetate (EtAc) production is proposed, in which the PV membrane is located in the bottom stream in order to selectively remove the water from the reboiler and recycle the acetic acid (HAc) into the feed. The main operating conditions of the RD process are discussed by experimental and simulation methods. The RD-PV coupled process was established by coupling the PVA/ceramic composite membrane with the RD reboiler. The effects of PV operating temperature and HAc/ethanol molar ratio on the RD performance are thoroughly discussed. It was found that the PVA/ceramic composite membrane exhibited good PV performance and stability with a total flux of 600 g·m ^-2·h ^-1 and a separation factor of 14 in 90 wt % HAc/water solution at 70 °C. Owing to the water removal and HAc recycle from the reboiler via PV, both the ethanol conversion and EtAc purity are remarkably improved, from 82.4 to 85.6 wt % and from 81.3 to 84.8%, respectively. This new RD-PV coupled process can be expected to be an effective and energy-saving way for ethyl acetate production.