Real Ternary System with Phase Splitting Methanol Dehydration

3 Real Ternary System with Phase Splitting Methanol Dehydration 

Dimethyl ether (DME) can be produced by dehydration of methanol using alumina as solid catalyst. The main reaction is given by 

Nisoli et al. [22] have studied the attainable regions for this reaction system with simultaneous distillative separation. These authors found an immiscible region between water and DME, which shrinks as the pressure increases. The PSPS of this system was calculated based on the VLE parameters given in the studies of Nisoli et al. [22]. Water was chosen as the reference component and DME as independent variable to represent the system  

When the pressure decreases, the chemical equilibrium line intersects the liquid-liquid envelope within the physically relevant composition space. Consequently, the chemical equilibrium line coincides with one of the tie lines with the phase-splitting region (see the enlarged region of Fig. 4.9(b)). 

102 4 Thermodynamic and Kinetic Effects on the Feasible Products of Reactive Distillation 

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