What did you learn in the chemical plant mtbe?

MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether) is the abbreviation of methyl tert-butyl ether. It is a gasoline additive with high octane number (research octane number 1 15). The chemical oxygen content is much lower than that of methanol, which is beneficial to warm the car and save fuel. Low latent heat of evaporation is beneficial to cold start. It is usually used to blend unleaded gasoline and low lead oil.

In industrial plants, the catalytic etherification reaction is carried out in a fixed bed or an expanded bed, and the reaction materials are in liquid phase. Besides MTBE, there are unreacted methanol and other C4 components except isobutylene in the reaction stream. Because methanol and C4 or MTBE will form a boiler, there are many schemes for product separation, one of which is shown in Figure 1, in which: 1- reactor; 2-* * boiling fractionator; 3- water extraction tower; 4- methanol recovery tower. In this process, three chromatographic columns are used to separate products under pressure. Firstly, methanol and C4 boiling substances are distilled in the first tower, and MTBE products are obtained from the bottom of the tower. Then, methanol is recovered from the boiling substance by water extraction, and finally, methanol is distilled from the methanol aqueous solution and returned to the reactor. The C4 components left after the reaction are mainly n-butene and isobutane, which can be used as raw materials for alkylation.