Coupled Reaction/Distillation Process for Hydrolysis of Methyl Acetate

A process composed of a fixed-bed and a distillation column with a side withdraw, mainly methanol, is developed to hydrolyze methyl acetate (MA) as a typical byproduct in polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and pure terephthalic acid (PTA) factory. The process is simulated by employing the equilibrium stage model RadFrac and plug flow model Rplug in Aspen Plus. Experiments are also carried out in a lab-scale to evaluate the process. The results show that at the molar ratio of water to methyl acetate about 4.0-5.0 in the feed stream and the volume ratio of distillate to feed MA above a critical value, the side product contains more than 80% (by mass) (MeOH) and less than 2% (by mass) MA, while the bottom contains more than 46% (by mass) acetic acid (HAc) and less than 0.5% (by mass) methanol with almost complete conversion of MA. Compared with the old catalytic distillation process we proposed before, this process can cut down 47.6% energy consumption and a distillation column.