ACETIC ACID-WATER ISOBUTYL ACETATE AS THE ENTRAINER

ACETIC ACID-WATER (ISOBUTYL ACETATE AS THE ENTRAINER)... 

Figure 9.4 RCM, LLE envelope, and material balance lines of acetic acid-water system using isobutyl acetate as the entrainer.

The comparison of the minimum attainable TAC for these three systems, as well as the acetic acid dehydration system without any entrainer, is shown in Table 9.13. From the table, one can observe that the no-entrainer system has the highest TAC and the isobutyl acetate system is most favorable for this feed composition and product specification requirements. The TAC for the isobutyl acetate system is only about 55% of the no-entrainer system, which shows that a large saving can be made by using the isobutyl acetate system. Notice that this finding is in general agreement with the industrial applications. (See patents by Costantini et al. and Parten and Ure ). The above two patents also found isobutyl acetate as a favorable entrainer for the separation of acetic acid and water. Another earher patent by Othmer found w-propyl acetate to be useful as an entrainer for this system. The patent by Mitsui Petrochemical Industries found n-butyl acetate to be... 

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