Methyl-tert-butyl-ether catalytic distillation column - Part II: Optimization

This is the second of two papers on the catalytic distillation process to produce methyl-tert-butyl-ether (MTBE) from methanol and isobutylene contained in a mixed butylenes stream. In this paper, an MTBE catalytic distillation column was optimized using AspenPlus. The optimization studies indicate that the market price of the MTBE product and the cost of the butylenes feed play a key role in determining the MTBE column profit. The profit is also affected by isobutylene composition changes. In addition, there are significant economic penalties if the column decision variables are not updated for changes in utility costs.