Simulation of reactive distillation process coupled with side reactors for preparation of methyl acetate

In view of the limitation to the reactive distillation process coupled side reactor that the convergence of calculation was poor due to much more recycle streams,a simulation model was established using only one distillation column model in Aspen Plus through introducing Murphree stage efficiency into RadFrac.When the total stages number of distillation column was fixed,the influence of number and spacing of side reactors,feeds location,reflux ratio and catalyst mass on the synthesis of methyl acetate were studied,and the matching of reaction capacity and separation capacity was discussed.The results of simulation show that the total conversion of acetic acid achieves 96.3% under the specific operation conditions,when five side reactors were used and the spacing of each reactor was four separated stages.