Comparison of reactive chromatography and reactive distillation for the synthesis of C1–C4 acetates

•Reactive chromatography and reactive distillation processes were optimised for four different esters.•RD process consumes less energy than the RC process for the synthesis of methyl, n-propyl and n-butyl acetates.•For the synthesis of ethyl acetate, energy consumption of RC is comparable to RD.

This work compares two multifunctional reactors, reactive distillation and chromatographic reactors, for the production of C1–C4 carboxylic esters. Both the processes have been simulated using appropriate simulators; and near optimal operating conditions are found based on the conceptual design and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA II) methodologies. The energy consumptions per kg of esters produced in both the processes are compared, and it has been found that for ethyl alcohol, reactive chromatography performs at par with reactive distillation. In the other cases (methanol, n-propanol and n-butanol), the reactive distillation is much more attractive.