Various aspects related to the feasibility and design of continuous reactive distillation processes are addressed in this paper. The recent developments in the field of reactive distillation design are discussed. Then, a new type of reliable and systematic design method, which is based on the “static analysis”, is explained. In this method, using minimal information about the physicochemical properties of the reaction mixture, the possible degree of conversion and the location of the reactive zone are calculated. The main feature of this method is that conventional distillation lines can be used in the analysis by assuming an infinite separation efficiency. The results of applying this method to the production of MTBE show that the feed region is classified into several subregions, each of which has different characteristics.

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The feasibility of steady states of continuous reactive distillation processes is discussed by applying the theory of static analysis (SA). The generality of this approach is proved by applying several industrial examples, all of which have different reaction schemes and thermodynamical properties. For each example process, the entire feed composition region is divided into several subregions, each of which has similar characteristics for the product composition and the column structure. The information derived by this analysis can be used effectively for the selection of the desirable feed composition and column configurations. The results of various examples indicate that the SA is a very convenient tool that provides an answer to the question of feasibility and provides hints for an early stage of design.