Optimal Design and Analysis of the MTBE Reactive Distillation System

Jen-Jung Lee and Gow-Bin Wanga*

Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, Chang Gung University,Tao-Yuan 33302, Taiwan

Abstract
Compared with the conventional reaction and separation flowsheets, reactive distillation (RD) can
effectively combine catalytic reaction and separation in a single unit and offer lots of economic
advantages in some systems. This work tries to study the optimal design and analysis of the MTBE
RD system. Based on the nominal process flowsheet, the optimal operating condition is then determined
by minimizing the total annual cost (TAC). Finally, a suitable control structure is used to perform the
dynamic simulation. The result shows that, under one-point temperature control and the flow rate ratio
cascaded by composition control structure, appropriate disturbance rejection performance can be
obtained.

Introduction
Distillation is still the most widely used method of separation in the chemical process industry.
Reactive distillation (RD) is an attractive and important process that combines reaction and separation in
a single unit. Recently Reactive distillation (RD) has drawn considerable attention due to its potential
advantages over traditional processes. Methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE) RD system is one of the main
industrial applications.
It is known the MTBE RD system has been extensively studied over two decades due to its
successful application in the chemical process industry (DeGarmo et al., 1992). The purpose of this work
is to study the optimal design and analysis of the MTBE RD system. The UNIQUAC property set is used
to model the liquid and gas-liquid interactions. The UNIQUAC binary interaction parameters and the
reaction kinetics reported by Rehfinger and Hoffmann (1990) are used in all the simulations. According
to the designed MTBE RD flowsheet proposed in the literature, the optimal operating condition is then
determined by minimizing the total annual cost (TAC).
The impact of interaction multiplicity on decentralized control of the MTBE RD system has been
investigated by Wang et al. (2003). They have proposed simple temperature loop to obtain effective
quality control. In this direction, suitable control structure is used to perform the dynamic simulation and
to evaluate the control performance under the disturbance of feed flow rate.

The Basic MTBE RD System

A reactive distillation column used for production of MTBE from methanol and isobutene is
considered in this study. Here, the UNIQUAC binary interaction parameters reported by Rehfinger and
Hoffmann (1990) are shown as Table 1 and used to calculate the required thermodynamic properties.
The kinetic model of synthesis of MTBE proposed by Rehfinger and Hoffmann (1990) is utilized to
describe the specified chemical reactions. The hydrocarbon feed for the MTBE RD column comes from
an fluidized catalytic cracking (FCC) unit containing 36 mol% isobutene and 64 mol% inert n-butene.
Figure 1 shows the basic process flowsheet of the MTBE unit and presents the base case design
parameters and operating conditions. The designed tray numbers of the rectifying section, the reactive
section, and the stripping section are 3, 8, and 6, respectively. This RD column operates at a reflux ratio
1

of 7 and the required heat duty is about 49.03 MJ/s under the specifications set as 99.2 mol% MTBE
purity and 92 % isobutene conversion.

The Optimal MTBE RD System and Simulation Results

Based on the designed reactive distillation system shown as Figure 1, the optimal operating
condition is then determined by minimizing the total annual cost (TAC). The optimal process flowsheet
and the corresponding design parameters and operating conditions of the MTBE RD system are shown
as Figure 2. In this optimal case, the tray numbers of the rectifying section, the reactive section, and the
stripping section are 3, 9, and 7, respectively.
In this study, a simple control structure is used to perform the dynamic simulation and to evaluate the
control performance under the disturbances of feed flow rate. The proposed one-point temperature
control and the flow rate ratio cascaded by composition control structure is shown as Figure 3. Dynamic
responses of the 15th tray temperature and isobutylene mole fraction under 20% feed flow rate change
are shown in Figure 4. The simulation result shows that appropriate disturbance rejection performance
can be obtained.

Conclusions
This work studies the optimal design and analysis of the MTBE RD system. Based on the nominal
process flowsheet, the optimal operating condition is then determined by minimizing the total annual
cost (TAC). A suitable control structure is used to perform the dynamic simulation. The primary
simulation result shows that, under one-point temperature control and the flow rate ratio cascaded by
composition control structure, appropriate disturbance rejection performance can be obtained. Foe better
disturbance rejection performance, two-point temperature control strategy should be applied.

References
1.DeGarmo, J. L., V. L. Paruleka, and V. Pinjala (1992), Consider reactive distillation, Chemical
Engineering Progress, 88, 43-50.
2.Rehfinger, A., and U. Hoffmann (1990), Kinetics of methyl tertiary butyl ether liquid phase synthesis
catalyzed by ion exchange resin - I. Intrinsic rate expression in liquid phase activities, Chemical
Engineering Science, 45, 1605-1617.
3. Wang, S. J., D. S. H. Wong, and E. K. Lee (2003), Effect of interaction multiplicity on control system
design for a MTBE reactive distillation column, Journal of Process Control, 13, 503-515.

Table1 UNIQUAC binary interaction parameters (Rehfinger and Hoffmann, 1990).

aij

(cal/mol)

aij

(cal/mol)

a12

-70.3003

a31

931.43

a21

1403.5

a23

103.73

a13

-174.94

a32

-48.931

1 = MeOH, 2 = Isobutylene, 3=MTBE

Figure 1. Basic process flowsheet of the MTBE RD column.

Figure 2. Optimal process flowsheet of the MTBE RD column.

Figure 3. Control structure for the optimal designed MTBE RD column.

Figure 4. Dynamic responses of the 15th tray temperature and isobutylene mole fraction.