Reactive Distillation for the Production of Cyclohexanol

Abstract

Cyclohexanol is an organic chemical intermediate product widely used in chemical<br /> industry and commonly produced by cyclohexene hydration. Because of the low mutual<br /> solubility of cyclohexene and water, the reaction is limited by chemical equilibrium,<br /> which has the disadvantage of low conversion of cyclohexene. In this paper, the hydration reaction of cyclohexene catalysed by A-36 cation exchange resin catalyst was analysed by Aspen Plus V8.6 simulation software in the presence of isophorone as cosolvent.<br /> The process model of synthesising cyclohexanol by catalytic distillation was verified by<br /> process experiments. The simulation experiments were carried out using the process<br /> model, and suitable operating conditions of the catalytic distillation column were obtained. These are: ketene feed ratio 1.5, alkene/water ratio 0.5, distillation stage trays 5,<br /> reaction stage trays 12, stripping stage trays 6, cyclohexene feed at the 18th tray, water<br /> and isophorone feed at the 5th tray, reflux ratio 3, feed ratio (D/F) 0.25. Under these<br /> operating conditions, the conversion of cyclohexene can reach 40.63 %.