Reactive Distillation for Synthesizing Ethyl tert-Butyl Etherfrom Bioethanol.

Reactive distillation, a configuration in which the reaction section is located inside the column, is employed to continuously synthesize ethyl tert-butyl ether (abbreviated as ETBE) from bioethanol (2.5 mol% ethanol in aqueous solution) and tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) using Amberlyst 15 in pellet form as a catalyst. Results under standard operating conditions indicate that ETBE at about 60 mol% can be obtained in the distillate, and almost pure water in the residue. The conversion of TBA and the selectivity of ETBE are 99.9 and 35.9%, respectively. The effects of operating conditions on conversion and selectivity are also investigated. Further purification of the distillate using the residue results in 95 mol% ETBE.The experimental results are compared with the results calculated by using an ASPEN PLUS simulator.