Process design and optimization of the efficient production of butyl acrylate by reactive azeotropic distillation/pervaporation using different feed ratios

Present industrial development has a great demand for butyl acrylate, an important basic chemical. Efficient synthesis and separation processes are very important for the clean manufacturing of butyl acrylate. In this work, two processes for the preparation of butyl acrylate by reactive distillation coupled with azeotropic distillation (RD-AD) or pervaporation (RD-PV) were proposed. By changing the ratio of reactants, the economic performance of the two processes under different specifications of butyl acrylate was analyzed, and the environmental impact of the two processes in the production process were analyzed. First, the process design using different purity specifications was completed focusing on the reaction kinetics. Then, based on the sequential iterative algorithm, process optimization was carried out with the minimum total annual cost (TAC) as the objective function, and the process with optimal operating conditions was obtained. Finally, TAC and the global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP), abiotic depletion potential (ADP) and human toxic potential (HTP) were used to assess the economic and environmental performance of the proposed processes. The results showed that the RD AD process had better economic performance, whereas the RD-PV process had better environmental performance. According to the results, the parameters that influenced the TAC for products with different purities were obtained. The TAC of the RD-AD process was 41.39% lower than that of the RD-PV process, and GWP, AP, and ADP of the RD-PV process were respectively 12.67%, 13.68%, and 13.07% lower than those of the RD-AD process.