TAME Process Basics

In this section, we study the simulation and control of the TAME process as a typical example of a reactive distillation system. There are two feed streams one is methanol and the second is a mixture of reactants and inert components. 

Methanol forms minimum boiling azeotropes with many of the C5s. The reactive column operates at 4 bar, which is the optimum pressure that balances the temperature requirements for reaction with those for vapor-liquid separation. At this pressure, isopentane and methanol form an azeotrope at 339 K that contains 26 mol% methanol. Therefore, the distillate from the reactive column contains a significant amount of methanol that must be recovered. 

Since the iC5/methanol azeotrope is pressure sensitive (79 mol% iC5 at 10 bar and 67 mol% iC5 at 4 bar), it is possible to use a pressure-swing process with two distillation columns, operating at two different pressures, to separate methanol from the C5 components. An alternative separation process for this system is extractive distillation, which is studied in this chapter. 

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Methylene Blue. 3,7-Bis(dimethylaminoipheno-thiazin-5-ium chloride Cl. Basic Blue 9 methylthioninium chloride tet tame thy] thionine chloride 3,7-bis(dimethylami-no)phenazathionium chloride Swiss blue C.I. 52015 solvent blue 8 urolene blue. C,fH CINjS mol wi 319.85. C 60.0855s H S.67%. Cl 11,08%, N ]3.]4%, S 10.02%. May crystallize with 3, 4 and 5 mols HjO. First prepd by Coro in ]876. Now usually prepd from dimethyl aniline and thiosul-furic acid H. E- Fieri-David, L, Blangey, Fundamental Processes of Dye Chemistry (Interscience. New York, 1949) p 311. See also Colour Index vol. 4 (3rd ed, ]971) p 4470. 

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