INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, the demand for purer products has increased particularly in the chemical
industry. Therefore, a greater efficiency of distillation techniques are required to separate
the chemical equilibrium between the reactants and products. In this process, the
engineers are to react the acetic acid and ethanol with some production mixture of ethyl
acetate, water, ethanol and acetic acid at the same time. Therefore, some usage of
separator especially distillation column will be used in order to increase the yield of
desired product which is the ethyl acetate.
Distillation is the most important separation technique used in any petrochemical or
chemical industies particularly in the downstream production of oil and gas. The
efficiency of a distillation column will solely depends on the number of stages
implemented in the column for the separating purposes. Moreover, it applies the concept
of separating mixture based on the difference in volatility of each component which leads
to a classification of light key and heavy key. Other than volatility, distillation process
design also emphasise on the heuristic simulations that separate the mixture depending on
designed parameter. Despite being the most common separation technique in chemical
and petrochemical industries, distillation process cannot separate all type of mixtures
especially the one to be azetropis adn close boiling point mixtures. In order to separate
azetropic systems with simple distillation, the process will have to be very expensive and
impossible as it will have high reflux ratio and very high column height as high numbers
of stages will be needed.
Recently, there is some combination of distillation and reaction which lead to a single
unit. This unit is now commonly known as the reactive distillation column where the
reaction and the distillation occured in the same unit. In terms of economic value, this
unit is very economic friendly for certain types of separation (Malone & Doherty, 2000).
However, due to simplicity purposes and basic separation, the process of separation is to
be vonducted based on the normal distillation column which separates the mixture of
products formed from the reaction between acetic acid and ethanol inside the batch
reactor.
Basically, ethyl acetate is one the most commonly used solvents in the manifacture of
varnishes, thinners and also nitrocellulose lacquers. Other than that, ethyl acetate also act
as the main component in the extractants for the purification of antiobiotics. Moreover,
this ester compund will serve its purposes in the medical industries by being the
intermediate in the manufacture of the various drugs. Apart from that, ethyl acetate is
very useful in the preparation for cleaning fluid and inks production, synthetic fruit
essences, manufacture of nail-polish removers, artificial leather and also photographic
materials.

There are several process that can be implemented in order to manufacture ethyl acetate
in the chemical industries. There are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Esterification of ethanol and acetic acid.

(CH3COOH + C2H5OH ---> CH3COOC2H5 + H2O
Presence of sulfuric acid as the catalyst
Dehydrogenation of ethanol ( 2C2H5OH ---> CH3COOC2H5 + 2H2)
Oxidation of ethanol ( 2C2H5OH + O2 ---> CH3COOC2H5 + 2H2O) in the presence of
Graphite nanofibres

C esterification of ethanol and acetic acid,

Since this process is proceed with the C
separation of ethyl acerate and ethanol will be very crucial as both of this components
have similar boiling points which around 77.35and 78.65 respectively. By having the
difference of 1.3, the conventional distillation process is nearly impossible as they have
close boiling points and there will be 45 mol% production of ethanol based on the
azeotropic mixtures. Due to advanced process of separating ethanol and acetic acid,
hence the process is proceeded with the separation of ethyl acetate and water as both have
77.35and 100respectively. In this separation, one batch reactor is used to react both
ethanol and acetic acid before the product enters the mixer. The mixed product will then
undergoes two distillation columns in order to get highest yield of ethyl acetate. At the
same time, two heat exchangers installed in the design in order to control the temperature
of condenser and reboiler. This will then be further explained in the process descriptions.
Therefore, process simulation technology is used in the chemical engineering courses
as it act as the most effective tools in order to predict the behavior of processes for the
plant design. Recently, Apen Hysis 8.0 software is very popular as the simulator as it
helps to relate the basic engineering relations of material balance and chemical
equilibrium. Since this simulation is very effective for the engineers before building the
real design in real life, thus an effecient design of distillation equipment that inclusive of
quantitative understanding of vapor liquid equilibria. Therefore, more research and
development required for the process design in order to design a better plant and hence
increases the profitability in the existing plants.