Design of Reactive Distillation Process for the Production of n-Butyl Levulinate
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Peng, Tzu-Hsuan
Abstract
Butyl Levulinate (LABE) is one of the potential fuel additives due to its good characteristics such as high octane number, high oxygen content, and low water solubility, etc. In the mean time, the raw materials that can produce LABE are n-Butanol (n-butyl alcohol) and Levulinic acid (LA). Both of them can come from biochemical conversions. For example, the biobutanol can be produced by ABE (Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol) fermentation process, and LA is one of the famous intermediate from hydrolysis of lignocellulostic biomass. Therefore, LABE becomes the variable biomass material.
The traditional process to manufacture levulinic ester takes two-step reactions. First, converting the Levulinic acid to angelica lactone and then followed by reaction of angelica lactone with alcohol. However, the two-step reactions may result in complicated process flowsheet and high operating cost. Direct esterification is an alternative way to produce levulinic esters, but the equilibrium limitation still have similar problem like the traditional process. This work aims to use the reactive distillation for simplifying the process of direct esterification of Levulinic acid to Butyl Levulinate.
In the reactive distillation system, n-Butanol (n-butyl alcohol) and Levulinic acid are added into the column with sulfuric acid as the catalyst. Levulinic acid and n-Butanol are converted to Butyl Levulinate as bottom product in the reaction section. The rectifying section is the heterogeneous azeotropic distillation system that can separate high purity water as the top product. By using ASPEN plus as simulation platform, the economy and applicability of the proposed reactive distillation process with stoichiometric feed of Levulinic acid and n-Butanol is illustrated in this study.
Subjects
Butyl Levulinate
Esterification
Reactive distillation
Levulinic acid
Type
thesis
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