Partial heat-integrated reactive distillation process for producing n-propyl acetate using a heat exchanger network

In this work, a partial heat-integrated reactive distillation process was studied to yield n-propyl acetate. To optimize the operating parameters of two distinct processes, the sequential iteration optimization method was employed. The heat exchanger network (HEN) is an effective approach for the heat-integrated design of a distillation process. Compared with the conventional reactive distillation process, the total annual cost, CO2 emissions and total energy consumption of the partial heat-integrated reactive distillation process decreased by 20.7%, 31.1%, and 32.2%, respectively. The thermodynamic efficiencies of reactive distillation process and partial heat-integrated reactive distillation process were 4.33% and 9.86%, respectively. The significance of this paper is crucial in guiding the process of partial heat-integrated reactive distillation for the production of n-propyl acetate.