Modeling and simulation of the startup of the coupling reactor for Industrial-Scale production of Diethyl oxalate

A one-dimensional homogeneous reactor model was developed to simulate the dynamic behavior of a fixed-bed reactor for a catalytic coupling reactor of carbon monoxide and ethyl nitrite to diethyl oxalate. Reactor modeling was performed using a comprehensive numerical model that was simulated using Simulink. The power law kinetic model was applied for simulating the catalytic coupling reaction considering the main and side reactions. The heat of reaction was calculated with respect to the reacted moles of ethyl nitrite for each reaction. When the simulated model reached a steady state, the predicted results were in agreement with the actual data that was collected from an already established pilot plant fixed bed reactor. The startup dynamic behavior of hypothetical industrial-scale production of diethyl oxalate at 78,000 tons per year was simulated. The system reached steady-state within 14–16 min at a space velocity of 1400 h⁻¹.