Process for 2-Ethylhexyl Acrylate Production Using Reactive Distillation: Design, Control, and Economic Evaluation

Abstract

2-Ethylhexyl acrylate is industrially produced from acrylic acid and 2-ethylhexanol. The reaction, catalyzed by sulfuric acid, is performed in batch reactors followed by a continuous distillation section. Drawbacks such as corrosion, difficult product separation, and disposal of the spent acid can be avoided by using solid catalysts and process intensification technologies. In this paper, the design, control, and economics of a 20 kt/a reactive distillation process are presented. The column has a catalytic section (structured packing), containing 1600 kg catalyst Amberlyst 70, which converts the reactants. A stripping section of 4.1 m recovers high-purity acrylate, while a rectification section of 0.7 m achieves low acid concentration in the top vapors. After condensation, high-purity wastewater is obtained in the overhead decanter. The proposed control system shows robustness when capacity changes are required, or when the fresh reactants are contaminated. The economic analysis shows attractive economic potential and other key economic indicators.

Novel Eco-Efficient Process for Methyl Methacrylate Production

“…Given the total mass of catalyst and tubes’ dimensions, the number of tubes and shell diameter are calculated. The procedure is similar to our previous work. , …”

“…The esterification reaction is well catalyzed by (solid) acid catalysts, but the main bottleneck remains the equilibrium limited nature of the chemical reaction. Many other acrylates and methacrylates are produced by esterification reactions, and there is much literature on using process intensification methodssuch as reactive distillation (RD)to shift the chemical equilibrium and drive esterification to completion in a new process that is energy efficient and cost-effective. − While RD works well for MAA esterification with larger alcohols (C 4 +), the reaction with MeOH is hindered by the unfavorable boiling point ranking . In fact, this esterification system belongs to group I R , which is among the worst in terms of potential application of RD, as the reactants are the lightest (MeOH) and heaviest (MAA) components, while the products (MMA and water) are midboiling components with almost identical boiling points and also forming potentially hindering azeotropes.…”

Acrylic Acid Removal Using Membrane Contactors during Acrylate Downstream Processing: A Techno-economic Assessment

“…The global 2-EHA market was valued at around $1 billion in 2014 and has shown significant growth in the past few years. This growth is anticipated to increase in the coming years. , At the industrial scale, 2-EHA is produced by esterification of acrylic acid (AA) and 2-ethylhexanol (2-EH) with formation of water as a byproduct. To avoid self-polymerization and formation of other byproducts, the AA separation needs to be done quickly at maximally 50 °C.…”

A new class of control structures for heterogeneous reactive distillation processes

“…This process setup is known as heterogeneous reactive distillation [4] and is encountered in numerous chemical processes in which various acids are reacted with higher alcohols to produce esters. Esterification is an example of much industrial relevance, including the production of n-propyl propionate [5], n-butyl acrylate [6], 2-ethylhexyl acrylate [7], triacetin [8], fatty acid esters [9,10], to name just a few.…”