A new high gravity catalytic reactive distillation process for n-butyl acetate synthesis

The synthesis of n-butyl acetate has been carried out for the first time in a novel rotating packed bed(RPB) in order to evaluate the feasibility and applicability of high gravity technology in reactive distillation.The n-butyl acetate was synthesized by using a strong acid cation exchange resin as the catalyst and acetic acid and n-butanol as reactants.The catalyst was packed into the RPB with a density of 336kg/m3,and the processes of reaction and distillation were carried out simultaneously.The effect of varying the RPB rotation speed was investigated;the optimal rotation speed was found to be 700-800r/min,giving a conversion of acetic acid of over 88%.When conventional catalytic reactive distillation was carried out with the same proportion of catalyst,the conversion of acetic acid was only 60%,which is significantly worse than in the RPB experiment.The results indicate that high gravity technology can significantly enhance catalyst efficiency in the reactive distillation field.