Vapor phase esterification of acetic acid with ethanol in a CHA zeolite membrane reactor: a CFD analysis

The combination of new technologies for achieving more efficient and sustainable processes due to their mutual integration is gaining particular interest in industry. In this study, the role of vapor membrane permeation technology in enhancing the catalytic performance of esterification of acetic acid with ethanol was considered. A computational fluid dynamic model was developed using COMSOL Multiphysics 5.4 as a software to predict the behavior of a zeolite membrane reactor used for carrying out the aforementioned esterification reaction. Reliable esterification reaction kinetics and water permeation mechanism through a zeolite membrane were used in the CFD model, comparing from a theoretical point of view the performance of a zeolite membrane reactor with an equivalent traditional reactor. After model validation, this theoretical study allowed to evaluate the effect of different operating parameters (operating pressure between 1 and 5 bar, feed molar ratio between 1 and 10, feed flow rate between 1.0·10-6 and 4.0·10-5 mol/s) on the performance of both the reactors. The theoretical predictions demonstrated the superiority of the zeolite membrane reactor over the traditional reactor during the acetic acid esterification with ethanol, reaching as best simulation results 99% AcOH conversion and 92% water vapor removal.