Process Design Study of Methyl Tertiary-Butyl Ether Production Using Reactive Distillation

Abstract

The increasing of gasoline demandcause, the need for octane number booster additives such as methyl tertiarybutyl ether, ethyl tertiary-butyl ether, triacetin and other additives is increasing. Methyl tertiary-butyl ether is one of the non-metallic substances that can be used as an octane number booster additive in gasoline up to 93.7 octane numbers and is not harmful to the environment because it does not form peroxide compounds. Methyl tertiary-butyl ether can be made by reacting methanol and isobutylene using the Amberlyst-15 catalyst on reactive distillation at a temperature of 70-90oC and 11 bar pressure. In this study, the effects of mole ratio of isobutylene and methanol and changes in reactive distillation design to methyl tertiary-butyl ether concentrations was examined. The best ratio of moles of isobutylene and methanol is 1:1.25. The design of reactive distillation for optimal methyl tertiary-butyl ether results is methanol feed on stage 9 with the number of stage 17, reactive zone in stage 2-11 with rectification zone in stage 1 and stripping zone in stage 12-17, reflux ratio 6. In the simulation process with a capacity of 100,000 tons per year using Aspen Plus, the conversion of methanol is 99% with the concentration of methyl tertiary-butyl ether is 97.48%. Keywords—methyl tertiary-butyl ether, additives, reactive distillation