Question

If I have a simply presentation about this PFD, what should I say? ( in half a minute )

FROMSTAGE F-200 10 12 8-201 26 13 21 DIST-200 16 P30 5T-203 17 Melthyl Lactae TO STAGE

Answer 1

Description of the product:

• Methyl lactate is a monobasic ester formed from lactic acid and methanol.
• It is also known as lactic acid methyl ester and it is commonly used as a solvent.
• It belongs to the lactate ester group of compounds.
• The compound is nontoxic and readily biodegradable.

Description of the process:

In this PFD, we could observe that reactive distillation is the most crucial operation on which the entire process is dependent. This type of reactive distillation operation consists of simultaneous separation processes.

Methanol when reacted with crude lactic acid to produce methyl lactate. Water and methanol could be simultaneously separated in the same column. A Separation column which is more effective for carrying out the separation of methanol and water is added to the PFD to make the entire process viable.
since Methyl Lactate is being continuously removed from the reactor the reaction equilibrium shifts towards the product side, thereby increasing maximum conversion according to Le-Chatelier’s principle.

The recovery of lactic acid from ammonium lactate solution is impossible by the basic acidification process because of the high solubility and lack of precipitation of ammonium sulfate. It is found that only the addition of methanol to the solution during acidification of ammonium lactate is very effective in decreasing the solubility of the produced ammonium sulfate. the product could then be separated from the solution by simple filtration. With this acidification process, the lactic acid filtrate was transformed into methyl lactate rapidly by an esterification reaction with methanol.

Ammonium sulfate byproduct can be utilized for the production of sulfuric acid and ammonia.