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4740593 
Journal Article 
Reactive Distillation for the Production of Methoxy Propyl Acetate: Experiments and Simulation 
Gadekar-Shinde, S; Reddy, B; Khan, M; Chavan, S; Saini, D; Mahajani, S 
2017 
Yes 
Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research
ISSN: 0888-5885
EISSN: 1520-5045 
56 
4 
832-843 
WOS:000393354700002 
Propylene glycol methyl ether acetate is an industrially important solvent. In this work, we study the applicability of reactive distillation (RD) for its synthesis in the presence of an ion-exchange resin, Amberlyst 15, as a catalyst. Simultaneous separation of water during the course of reaction shifts the reaction in the forward direction, which renders cost effectiveness and compactness to the process. The presence of an azeotrope between methoxy propanol and water complicates the separation, leading to a loss of reactants in the product streams, thereby hampering both conversion and purity. Toluene is thus used as an entrainer to further intensify the process. In this work, the intrinsic kinetic parameters are determined from batch reactor data, and used subsequently to simulate the column performance. An experimentally validated simulator is used to examine the effect of various operating and design parameters. Reactant and product losses are minimized to negligible levels and a significant increase in the conversion is realized.