Modeling of Pervaporation Reactor for Benzyl Alcohol Acetylation

The pervaporation reactor is, specifically, the new technology for reaction and separation. It is rather difficult to predict the market potential of processes newly introduced on the market. However, in comparing investment costs, environmental aspects of pervaporation systems with those of conventional processes, it can be said that pervaporation reactor will play an important role in the chemical industry for new installations as well as for rehabilitation of existing plants. Techno-economic studies are showing that pervaporation reactors have good market potential. There are many examples where pervaporation reactors can reduce product costs by an important margin. The most common reaction system studied for the application of pervaporation is an esterification reaction between an alcohol and an acid in the presence of a highly acidic catalyst (e.g., concentrated sulfuric acid). In the present paper, modified/improved model for pervaporation reactor for benzyl alcohol acetylation is presented. The parametric sensitivity is studied for the performance of pervaporation reactor. The use of pervaporation coupled to the esterification reaction increases the conversion considerably. The modified model allows the evaluations of the reaction time necessary to achieve a given conversion. The model makes it possible to determine the membrane surface area / operating time ratio for a given conversion. The present model can be extended for the other esterification reactions in pervaporation reactors.