Conventional dimethyl maleate (DMM) synthesis relies on the use of sulfuric acid as a catalyst which requires water washing and produces a large amount of wastewater that harms the environment. The use of this method is expensive since it involves numerous processes such as neutralization of sulfuric acid, washing with water, distillation etc. and the yield of dimethyl maleate is not very high. Reactive distillation integrates the two important industrial processes such as reaction and distillation into a single unit which shortens the overall process, reduces capital and operating costs, and maintains the reaction in a forward direction to enhance the conversion of maleic anhydride by continuously removing of the products. In this work, simulation study based on experimental investigation of reactive distillation process for the synthesis of dimethyl maleate was carried out using Aspen Plus V11. DZH strong cation exchange resin was used as catalyst for esterification reaction of maleic anhydride with methanol. A reactive section of column was packed with Katapak SP type packing loaded with DZH catalyst while non-reactive sections consist of wire gauze packing. In order to describe a reactive distillation process for synthesis of dimethyl maleate, RAD-FRAC equilibrium stage model was employed. The NRTL activity model and RK equation of state model were selected to describe vapor-liquid equilibrium of the system. The reliability of the developed simulated model was verified by validating the simulation results with the experimental ones. The effect of various design and operating parameters on the conversion of maleic anhydride and purity of dimethyl maleate has been studied. It was found that the optimal condition for RD, were as follow: total number of theoretical stages 17, rectifying stages 3, reactive stages 7, stripping stages 5, reflux ratio 0.25, operating pressure 0.1 MPa, reboiler duty 250 Cal/Sec, feed mole ratio 1:5. Under optimized condition the water formed as a results of esterification reaction was constantly removed from the reactive section of the column to maintain reaction balance, the conversion of maleic anhydride was 99.95 %, purity of dimethyl maleate achieved was 0.997 and the reactive distillation process was feasible to produce dimethyl maleate without any wastewater.
