Condensation of a mixture of vapours followed by reaction in the condensate

✍ Scribed by Peder Holk Nielsen; John Villadsen

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1986
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 586 KB
• Volume: 41
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0009-2509
• DOI: 10.1016/0009-2509(86)87144-5

✦ Synopsis

A water cooled condenser is used to separate a mixture of ketene (b.p. -5OOC), acetic acid and acetic anhydride. The ketene reacts violently with acetic acid in the condensate film, and unless the condenser is carefully designed and an optimal flow pattern is chosen no ketene will leave the unit. Thus, countercurrent operation is much better than cocurrent operation. Addition of alkanes (e-q. hexane) to the feed leads to an impressive improvement of ketene yield due to a lowering of the liquid temperature to approximately the boiling point of the alkane. It is briefly described how the experimental results can be mathematically modeled and simulated. The agreement between experimental and simulated results is of the order of the experimental error.