Bifurcation in the reactive distillation for ethyl acetate at lower murphree plate efficiency

As Murphree plate efficiency becomes lower than 70%, bifurcation with output multiplicity against organic reflux flow rate was found in the simulation of a reactive distillation process for the production of EtAc. Conceptual design of this RD process at an MPE of 60% is thus studied in details. The temperature and composition profiles corresponding to different MPEs are presented, and the open-loop stability of these steady-states is investigated. It is then found that to use a reflux ratio, instead of the reflux flow rate, as a manipulation variable can avoid the occurrence of such output multiplicity. This result is useful in guiding the selection of manipulation variable to design the process as well as the control for the production of EtAc using reactive distillation.