Design of reactive distillation processes for the production of butyl acrylate:Impact of bio-based raw materials

The chemical industry is nowadays predominantly using fossil raw materials,but the alternative use of bio-based resources is investigated to account for the foreseeable scarcity of fossil feedstocks.A main challenge of using biobased feedstocks is the complexity of the impurity profile.For an economic production of bio-based chemicals,the use of intensified processes is inevitable and approaches are needed for the various process intensification techniques to identify their applicability to be used for the production of bio-based components.In the presented study,an approach is shown for the reactive distillation(RD) technology to identify the most critical bio-based impurities and their impact on the reactive distillation process.The investigated case-study is the production of n-butyl acrylate from acrylic acid and n-butanol.Among all initially identified impurities,the key impurities,having the biggest impact on the product purity in the reactive distillation process,are found.These impurities are then studied in more detail and an operating window depending on the impurity concentration is identified for the reactive distillation column.Furthermore,an integrated design of upstream and downstream processes is facilitated,as the presented results can be used in the development of the fermentation processes for the production of the bio-based reactants by decreasing the concentration of the critical impurities.

Influence of cerium and yttrium addition on strength and electrical conductivity of pure aluminum alloys

To develop pure aluminum alloys with high conductivity and strength, Al-0.2Ce and Al-0.2Ce-0.1Y alloys were prepared by rolling and annealing processes in this study. The effects of trace rare earth elements on the strength and electrical conductivity of the pure aluminum alloys were investigated. It is revealed that the addition of Ce and Y to pure aluminum can effectively enhance the strength and electrical conductivity of the alloys. In Al-0.2Ce, the addition of Ce can effectively refine the grain size of a-Al, with an average grain size of 90.68 μm in the as-cast state. The grain size of the alloy is further reduced to 87.55 μm by the simultaneous addition of Y. The synergistic addition of Ce and Y changes the properties of the alloy. The addition of Ce and Y also produces the Al_(11)Ce_(3) and Al_(3)Y second phases, which have coherent relationship with a-Al. The two-dimensional mismatch degree was calculated to be only 4.43%and 0.85%, respectively, which can provide a certain amount of nucleation substrate for a-Al in the incubation stage. The interfacial match between the L1_(2)structure of Al_(3)Y and a-Al was calculated using first-principles simulations. The results indicate that Al_(3)Y has a strong bonding effect with a-Al. Nanoscale second phases at grain boundaries can be effective in reducing resistivity due to dislocation motion.Nanoscale second phases with better matching interfaces to the substrate have no positive effect on the scattering motion of electrons.