Case Study Synthesis of MTBE

The esterification of iC4 with methanol in the presence of inert nC4 and an acidic ion-exchange resin is used as case study. A detailed description of the system s features, together with relevant physical-chemical data are available in appendix B. For the feasibility analysis the following parameters and design specifications are of interest, 

The novelty of the approach relies on the fact that it addresses feed mixtures outside conventional composition ranges. With this, an extended picture of the feasibility analysis and column sequencing in RD processing is attained. To the best of our knowledge, such exceptional feeds have not been reported yet in the open knowledge domain. 

The simulation problem encompasses the solution of the RCM expressions for two cases nonreactive and reactive mixture of iC4-MeOH-MTBE-nC4 system. According to the 

The simulations are performed until singular solutions are found, which correspond to pure component or (non-) reactive azeotropes i.e. x=y and X=Y). 

Three minimum boiling point azeotropes are found for the nonreactive system at the operating pressure of 1110 Pa, 

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