Simulation of Tert-Butyl Alcohol Forming Process by Slurry Catalytic Distillation with Custom Kinetic Program

Abstract

Producing tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) by slurry catalytic distillation is a green new technology. In order to provide reference data for this production process, this paper applied advanced simulation software Aspen to simulate and optimize the slurry catalytic distillation process of producing TBA. And the kinetics equation of isobutylene hydration which is catalyzed by cation exchange resin in continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) is used to display the reaction process. Appropriate theoretical plate number of rectifying section, reaction section and stripping section, reflux ratio and liquid hold-up are obtained by the analog computation. Under this process condition, the conversion rate of isobutylene is 82.53%; the mole fraction of TBA in the bottom discharging is 82.5%.