Intensification and performance assessment for synthesis of 2-methoxy-2-methyl-heptane through the combined use of different pressure thermally coupled reactive distillation and heat integration technique

2-methoxy-2-methyl-heptane (MMH) plays a key role in reformulated gasoline industry due to fewer environmental impacts than methyl tert-butyl ether. Thus, the design of MMH production process has received substantial attention. In this work, we propose a different pressure thermally coupled reactive distillation (DPTCRD) process for the synthesis of MMH aiming at reducing in energy requirements and improvement in environmental benefits. The key design variables are optimized to evaluate the economic feasibility of designed process. Furthermore, the heat integration strategy has been further explored by the application of heat exchanger network based on the observation of the temperature-enthalpy diagram to fully utilize the redundant duty in DPTCRD system. The results demonstrate that the total annual cost of the heat integration-DPTCRD (HI-DPTCRD) is reduced by 29.17% than that of conventional reactive distillation process. In addition, CO₂ emission of the proposed HI-DPTCRD is decreased by 75.04% compared with that through the existing process.