An optimization method was applied to determine optimal operating parameters on Reactive Distillation column (RD column) via esterification of acetic acid with methanol to produce methyl acetate using Aspen Batch Distillation. The set-up reactive distillation model was adopted from an in-house made RD column, which comprised of seven stages including reboiler and condenser, five possible feed stages, where solid catalyst for the reaction was contained. In this work, effect of temperature of heater at reboiler, feed stage and reflux rate on yield of methyl acetate and purity of total distillated product were studied. Case studies were designed by design of experiment and consequently simulation results were optimized by using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) to determine optimal condition. The results indicated that the optimum temperature of heater at reboiler, feed stage and reflux rate were 141.87°C, Stage4 and 332.48 mol·h–1, respectively, giving maximum yield and purity of methyl acetate at 57.50 mol% and 80.46 wt%, respectively.

This paper aims to study the effect of raschig ring packing patterns using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). CFD module of particle tracing was established to measure particles diffusing through the packed bed. The support raschigs catalyst was modeled in three patterns within a tubular reactor – namely, vertical staggered, chessboard staggered and reciprocal staggered pattern. A case study of Dry Methane Reforming (DMR) was investigated at 600°C, 1 atm. The study of Mean Resident Time (MRT) and E(t) function were investigated to identify the packing pattern performance. The results showed that the minimum value of the E(t), which means the flow behavior, was close to ideal plug flow behavior. MRT can be used to systematically identify the deviation from the ideal plug flow reactor of the three different packing patterns.

Major challenge of using metal based microchannel reactor is catalyst active phase deposition onto the metal surface. Washcoating method is one of the effective procedure for depositing supported catalyst onto the substrate surface. In order to control quality of the catalytic washcoated layer, stability of catalyst slurry, amount of catalyst solution and number of coatings were focused. The catalyst slurry used in this work contained 20wt% of 10%Ru/Al2O3, 5wt% of polyvinyl alcohol, 1% of acetic acid and water. The suitable pH of catalyst solution was in a range of 2–4. For the single layer coating, the good adherance of catalytic layer was observed. The highest %weight loss was 0.07% at pH value of 8. From the effect of catalyst slurry volume, 0.1 and 0.2 mL gave relatively low catlyst loading difference of before and after adhesion test. The average thickness of 0.2 mL single layer washcoating was 121.73 μm. Multilayer washcoating, the results clearly showed that the obtained washcoated layer can be used to apply onto the metallic substrate not only single layer but also multilayer. The double layer washcoating gave the highest catalyst loading per unit area for every volume of catalyst slurry. The 0.2 mL gave relatively good adherence and uniform washcoating layer in multilayer coating process. For single layer washcoat on microchannel structure, the obtained thickness was 5 μm.