Inter-integration reactive distillation with vapor permeation for ethyl levulinate production: Equipment development and experimental validating |
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| Authors: | Wen-Tao Han Zhen-Wei Han Xue-Chao Gao Zhou Hong Xin-Gang Li Hong Li Xue-Hong Gu Xin Gao |
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| Affiliation: | 1. School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, National Engineering Research Center of Distillation Technology, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering (Tianjin), Tianjin University, Tianjin, China;2. State Key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering, College of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, China |
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| Abstract: | Ethyl levulinate, one of the main derivatives of levulinic acid (LA), is of significant potential as platform chemicals for bio-based materials. The esterification of LA was generally carried out in a conventional batch reactor or in a conventional reactive distillation column. However, traditional methods are hard to deal with equilibrium limited reactions and azeotropic issues. Therefore, the inter-integration reactive distillation with vapor permeation (R-VP-D) process, which integrated reaction, vapor permeation, and distillation into one single unit, is proposed in this paper and validated in the pilot-scale experiments. A comparative study is made between a pilot-scale RD column with and without VP module. Owing to the water-selective VP membrane and the ingenious design of related apparatuses, the R-VP-D process reveal a superiority in LA conversion of 21.9% maximum higher than RD without VP process and removing of product water about 53.6% from VP module, which indicates its promising industrial application in process intensification field. |
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| Keywords: | membrane-assisted reactive distillation ethyl levulinate process intensification reactive distillation vapor permeation |
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