Understanding the Quantitative Matching Principle of Reaction and Distillation for the Reactive Distillation Process of Cyclohexyl Acetate Synthesis

The matching problem of reaction and separation in reactive distillation (RD) is an urgent problem, and the main reason for little relevant research is that there is no suitable RD for experiments. To understand the matching principle, this work designed KRD001#SCPI and HY@SiC catalytic packings, which tend to different coupling ratios of reaction and separation. The pilot-scale RD experiments and corresponding simulation of cyclohexyl acetate production were studied to verify matching coupling of different reaction RD requirements. Upon verification of this, conventional RD processes were considered from economic, environmental, and energy perspectives, and a new matching form of RD was further proposed based on uneven product distribution. For a ternary reaction system where product was heavy, product concentration moved downward, catalytic packings with high reaction rates were needed at lower reaction sections to avoid a reverse reaction, and those with high separation efficiency are needed at the upper section to separate product and reactants better.