The Investigation of Purity Improvement for the Production of Methyl Propionate in Different Typesof Batch Distillation Systems

Methyl propionate, also known as methyl propanoate, is a clear colourless liquid with a characteristic odour (fruity smell and taste). in this study, the formation of methyl propionate through the esterification o propionic acid and methanol was investigated in the reactive distillation system using a conventional (cbd), single feed (sf-sbd), and double feed semi-batch distillation (df-sbd) columns for the first time. the performances measure of these distillation systems were evaluated in terms of minimum batch time for a given separation task. the optimization results clearly showed that the df-sbd system is a more attractive operation in terms of reaction conversion, and maximum achievable purity as compared to the sf sbd, and cbd processes.