Reactive distillation for production of n-butyl acrylate from bio-based raw materials

Due to the scarcity of oil in the future, alternative resources and production pathways for the production of chemicals need to be identified. To allow for an economic production of these chemicals, the use of innovative equipment and methods has to be investigated to intensify the processes. Reaction distillation integrates separation by distillation and reaction into one unit and is already known to be a promising concept to improve process performance, leading to more sustainable processes. However, the design of reactive distillation processes using bio-based raw materials is difficult because the wide impurity profile of the reactants may lead to a large number of additional reactions and thermodynamic non-idealties. Hence, within this work, a 4-step methodology for the design of a reactive distillation column processing bio-based resources is presented. In this study, the focus is on the impact of impurities, resulting from the use of bio-based raw material. Based on these results, the product purity in presence of the impurities is analysed and operational and design changes to overcome identified product purity limitations will be presented.