Separation of C1-C6 alcohol/ester/water system in continuous reactive distillation unit a thermodynamic analysis

Continuous reactive distillation is one of the optimized methods for synthesis of C1-C6 esters industrially. The products of the reaction are difficult to be obtained in their pure states due to the presence of azeotropes in the system. The theme of the current work is to highlight the thermodynamic nature of the each C1-C6 alcohol/ester/water system independently and investigate the possible alternatives implemented for pure separation of ester and water. This work comprehensively reports reactive distillation study for continuous synthesis of C1-C6 esters and separation strategies implemented for alcohol/ester/water system in a compiled form. Presence of the azeotropes within the system components helps us in defining the feasible separation schemes to be applied in continuous study. Current work reports a systematic thermodynamic analysis of C1-C6 alcohol/esters/water mixture with help of residue curve map to investigate the complexity of the mixture and alternate configurations/ schemes implemented in continuous reactive distillation technology for enhanced conversion and purity of product streams.