Methodology for Design of Reactive Distillation Column and Kinetics for Isoamylene Etherification Catalysed by Amberlyst 35

Isoamylene from the Fischer-Tropsch syncrude can be transformed to valuable fuel oxygenate additives through an equilibrium limited etherification reaction with methanol. A reactive distillation process is established to increase isoamylene conversion. Facing the challenge of improving product purity at the same time, an equilibrium stage model based design methodology is proposed and illustrated step-by-step for converting the Fischer-Tropsch C_5 olefins to tert-amyl methyl ether(TAME) process by using Aspen Plus. Under the guide of the proposed methodology, the design leads to a TAME product purity of higher than 95% and an isoamylene conversion of higher than 90%. The etherification kinetics over Amberlyst 35 is also studied within a temperature range of 60 ℃ to 75 ℃ to shed more light on the feasibility of process development. The methodology provides an effective reactive distillation column design to achieve the target reactant conversion and product purity simultaneously.