Intensification and analysis of ethyl levulinate production process having a reactive distillation through vapor recompression and bottom flash techniques

Ethyl levulinate (EL) is an important biodiesel blending ingredient. Reactive distillation (RD) and distillation are energy intensive operations in the EL process studied in this work. Therefore, the intensification approach for energy reduction in these operations is important. In this study, we investigated the implementation of vapor recompression (VR), multistage vapor recompression (MVR) and bottom flash (BF) techniques in the EL production process having one reactive distillation and two normal distillations for the first time. New intensified cases are- VR in RD (RD-VR), BF in RD (RD-BF), MVR in C1 column (C1-MVR), BF in C2 column (C2-BF), and hybrid RD-BF/C2-BF. Performance of these intensified cases is investigated and compared against the base case in terms of energy savings, total annual cost (TAC), carbon emission, energy consumed per ton of EL and cost of processing per kg of EL. It is found that the RD-BF/C2-BF scheme yields 61% reduction in overall heating duty, 35.5% reduction in TAC, and 58.76% reduction in carbon emission, with respect to the base case. Cost of EL production is found to be $ 6.6 per kg. This study is important as it focuses on economic as well as environmental aspects.