Dynamic Evidence of the Multiplicity Mechanism in Methyl tert-Butyl Ether Reactive Distillation

The existence and explanation of steady-state multiplicity in methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) reactive distillation have been addressed by several authors. Recently, Schrans et al. (Comput. Chem. Eng. 1996b, 20, S1609−S1614) analyzed the dynamic behavior of a rigorous dynamic model and verified the presence of multiple solutions. This paper shows how the mechanistic explanation given by Hauan et al. (Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 1995, 34 (3), 987−991) may be used to interpret and predict dynamic behavior when the reactive distillation column is subject to input disturbances.