Reactor design in Production of Ethyl Acetate
Reactor design in Production of Ethyl Acetate
(OP)
Hello All. Hope you will be fine. I Am working as chemical engineer at a petrochemical plant ( acetates). We have a continous reactor of 6 tons for the esterification reaction. Sulfuric acid is used as catalyst.reactor is glass lined. we want to replace it with reactor of different material of construction. because steam consumption is very high as glass is bad conductor of heat. Reaction carried out at 104-106 C. So what do u think which Material is suitable for it ? and secondly direct steam injection through coil is best of jacketed reactor ?? any design idea if u have..plz help me out





RE: Reactor design in Production of Ethyl Acetate
HTH
RE: Reactor design in Production of Ethyl Acetate
RE: Reactor design in Production of Ethyl Acetate
Tantalum is fully resistant, but will cost you the earth.
There may be less expensive alloys, but which one will be resistant will depend entirely on what else is in the reaction mixture, the concentration of acid, the actual metal temperature etc. It is very situation specific.
RE: Reactor design in Production of Ethyl Acetate
You say that steam consumption is high because the glass is a poor conductor. Do you mean that you are having to run the steam jacket hotter to get the same overall heat transferred? Where are you losing heat that you can improve using an alternative reactor?
I was wondering if reducing the losses by improved installation might be more cost effective than replacing the reactor.
Matt