Scribd
Upload
135 views3 pages

Steady State Simulation of Production of Ethyl Acetate Using Ethanol and Acetic Acid

The document summarizes a steady state simulation of producing ethyl acetate through the esterification of ethanol and acetic acid. It describes using DWSIM software to simulate mixing the reactants in two mixers, sending the output to a continuous stirred tank reactor followed by a distillation column to separate the products. Test results are presented showing 95% ethyl acetate in the vapor stream and recycling the residue to improve conversion of the equilibrium reaction.

Uploaded by

Sarang Goh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
135 views3 pages

Steady State Simulation of Production of Ethyl Acetate Using Ethanol and Acetic Acid

The document summarizes a steady state simulation of producing ethyl acetate through the esterification of ethanol and acetic acid. It describes using DWSIM software to simulate mixing the reactants in two mixers, sending the output to a continuous stirred tank reactor followed by a distillation column to separate the products. Test results are presented showing 95% ethyl acetate in the vapor stream and recycling the residue to improve conversion of the equilibrium reaction.

Uploaded by

Sarang Goh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

Steady State Simulation of Production of Ethyl Acetate using Ethanol and

Acetic Acid
Rahul Selvakumar1, Rodney Craig Cutinho1 R Shivakumar2
1
Department of Chemical Engineering, BMS College of Engineering, Bengaluru 560019
2
Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, BMS College of Engineering, Bengaluru
560019
1
Mail ID: [email protected] [email protected]
2
[email protected]

INTRODUCTION
Ethyl acetate is normally produced by esterification of ethanol and acetic acid. A rigorous distillation
column, combining the reaction and separation into a single stage, is proposed.
The costs of a chemical process are often dominated by the costs for the separation and purification of
the products. Between the different separation techniques, distillation is one of the most important and
commonly used in all chemical and petrochemical industries. Ethyl acetate is one of the most widely
used fatty acid ester and is a quick-drying solvent with excellent solubility. As an excellent industrial
solvent it finds an application as an important component of extractants used for antibiotics concentration
and purification and an intermediate in the manufacture of various drugs.

ABSTRACT
This simulation was conducted to optimize the process of production of Ethyl Acetate by the Fischer
esterification reaction between acetic acid and ethanol with the aid of the software ‘DWSIM’. The
two reactants were mixed in a mixer 1 and the output was sent to mixer 2 where the feedback was
added. This was then sent to CSTR followed by a distillation column. The products were collected
and a feedback provided.

INTRODUCTION
Ethyl acetate has been largely employed as a solvent in paints, coatings, inks and adhesives. It can be
used as an ideal substitute for aromatic compounds for the purpose of improving working environment
because aromatic compounds cause serious damage to human beings and the production of ethyl acetate
in industries is mainly classified into three categories. First, the classical Fischer esterification process
of ethanol with acetic acid. This process includes the usage of acid catalysts such as sulfuric acid and p-
toluene sulfonic acid. Second, by Tishchenko reaction of acetaldehyde. This makes use of aluminium
triethoxide as a catalyst. Third process is the one which has just been recently commercialized, is
addition of acetic acid to ethylene using clay and heteropoly acid as the catalyst of the reaction. Fischer
esterification process of producing ethyl acetate is an equilibrium reaction occurring between acetic acid
and ethanol. In using this process for the production of ethyl acetate, one of the key issues that should
be addressed is low reaction conversion. As a result of this low conversion, heavy capital investments
and high energy costs are inevitable in this process, especially, based on the experience especially, based
on the experience. The equilibrium reactor has two products streams both of which were distilled. The
streams gave the following results.
The output vapour steam had 95% Ethyl Acetate and
Ethanol 3.8% with minute quantities of water and acetic acid
The residue containing ethanol, acetic acid and water was recycled.

FLOWSHEET
RESULT TABLE

Master Property Table for the Simulation process.

You might also like