Residue Curve Computation for Methyl Tert-Butyl Ether (MTBE) Chemistry

Initializing live version
Download to Desktop

Requires a Wolfram Notebook System

Interact on desktop, mobile and cloud with the free Wolfram Player or other Wolfram Language products.

The following reaction is used to produce methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE): isobutene+MeOH ⇄ MTBE. The reacting mixture contains -butane, an inert component, in addition to methanol (MeOH), isobutene, and MTBE.

[more]

Azeotropes between MeOH and isobutene and MTBE and MeOH are reacted away. The azeotrope, A, between MeOH and -butane is shown in the figure with a red dot. This azeotrope is an unstable node and contains 2.21 mole% MeOH.

This Demonstration plots the residue curve passing through a user-specified location in the triangular diagram. The and axes of the figure are related to liquid phase compositions by the following relations:

and ,

where , , and are the mole fractions of isobutene, MeOH, and MTBE, respectively.

The position of pure MTBE, shown by a green dot in the diagram, is given by .

[less]

Contributed by: Housam Binous and Ikbel El Glaoui (March 2011)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA


Snapshots


Details

References:

Wikipedia, "Methyl Tert-Butyl Ether".

M. Niang and P. Mikitenko, "Analyse de Faisabilité d'une Distillation Réactive par la Méthode des Courbes de Résidus," Revue de l'Institut Français du Pétrole, 53(4), 1998 pp. 439–462.



Feedback (field required)
Email (field required) Name
Occupation Organization
Note: Your message & contact information may be shared with the author of any specific Demonstration for which you give feedback.
Send