Feasibility Study of Reactive Distillation for the Production of Propylene Glycol Monomethyl Ether Acetate through Transesterification

This paper aims to present the feasibility of conducting the transesterification of propylene glycol ether (PM) with methyl acetate (MeAc) in a reactive distillation (RD) column to improve the reaction conversion. The essential thermodynamic and reaction kinetic data of the reaction system were measured for the feasibility study. There is only one azeotrope, MeAc–MeOH, in the reaction system, and the NRTL model could describe well the thermodynamic behavior of this system. The transesterification of PM with MeAc is an endothermic reaction with activation energy E = 55.704 kJ·mol–1. The feasibility was analyzed by residue curve maps (RCM), showing that full conversion of PM could be realized by RD with a mole ratio of MeAc–PM larger than 2.882. The intensification effect was experimentally verified in a batch RD column. Finally, some important parameters are given through the conceptual design to develop a continuous RD column for the transesterification of PM with MeAc.