Study on the process of producing crotonaldehyde from acetaldehyde catalyzed by Zr-β zeolite

• A scheme for mechanical pressurisation of reaction products followed by partial condensation in a thermally coupled manner is proposed. • A scheme for the evaporation of MCP from the top of the column was proposed for the discharge of impurities. • The heat transfer network of the whole process was optimised using pinch point analysis technique. • Processes with different feed concentrations of acetaldehyde were investigated. As an essential raw material of chemical industry, crotonaldehyde is mainly used to produce sorbic acid, which is a kind of safe food preservative. The nowadays production process of crotonaldehyde adopts sodium hydroxide solution and acetic acid in series as catalysis, which cause serious problems such as salinity waste water and equipment corrosion. Therefore, Zr-β zeolite was developed to catalyze the production of crotonaldehyde from acetaldehyde gas–solid reaction process in our group. This catalyst showed the potential of industrial application for its 94 % selectivity and stability. This paper aims to develop a technological process to produce crotonaldehyde from acetaldehyde based on the newely-researched-out Zr-β zeolite catalyst. According to experimental results of reaction condition and product distribution, a technological process consisting of (1) aldol condensation reaction and raw material recovery section, (2) crotonaldehyde concentration and refinement section, (3) 2-methyl-2-cyclopenten-1-one (MCP) and acidic impurity removal section was established. Mechanical supercharging was employed in section (1) to elevate the heat grade of reactor effluent to heat the reactor feed. Pre-concentration followed by azeotropic distillation was proposed to purify croton aldehyde product. The removal of little MCP in the re-used water was accomplished by evaporating MCP at the top of the column based on our previous finding that MCP-water could form minimum azeotrope. As a result, the purity of crotonaldehyde reached 99.92 wt% and water content reduced below 10 ppm in product, which is much better than the product standard required crotonaldehyde purity 99.5 % and water content 2000 ppm. Based on optimum process, heat exchange network was further optimized with pitch point method, and at last the required heat load was 2.25 Gcal per ton of crotonaldehyde product. The problem of generating salinity waste water in the traditional process was solved thoroughly, which meant that this is a more environmentally friendly process to produce crotonaldehyde.