Journal of Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Technology Vol. 5, No. 1 , pp. 63 - 75 6 3 The Investigation of Purity Improvement for the Production of Methyl Propionate in Different Types of Batch Distillation Systems Dhia Y. Aqar * 1 , Hassan H. Al Alak 2 , N. Rahmanian 3 , I.M. Mujtaba 3 1 Ministry of Oil, South Refineries Company, Basra, Iraq 2 Department of Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Kufa, Najaf, Iraq 3 Faculty of Engineering and Informatics, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Received: January 06, 2018 Methyl propionate, also known as methyl propanoate, Accepted: September 08, 2018 is a clear colourless liquid with a characteristic odour (fruity smel l and taste). In this study , the formation of methyl propionate through the esterification o Keywords : propionic acid and methanol was inves tigated in the Methyl propionate reactive distillation system using a conventional (CBD), CBD single feed (SF - SBD), and double feed semi - batch SF - SBD distillatio n (DF - SBD) columns for the first time . The Double feed semi - batch distillation performances measure o f these distillation systems (DF - SBD) were evaluated in terms of min imum batch time for a given separation task. The optimization results clearly * Corresponding author: show ed that the DF - SBD system is a more attractive E - mail: :
[email protected] operation in terms of reaction conversion, and maximum achievable purity as compared to the SF SBD, and CBD processes. 64 Dhia Y. Aqar et al. 1. Introduction Methyl propionate is a very important component which has useful applications in a variety of areas in the chemical industry such as solvents for cellulose nitrate, lacquers, plasticizers, chemical intermediates, fragrances, flavors, a raw material in organic synthesis for the production of varnishes, paints, and other chemical compound s such as methyl methacrylate [1] .