• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.581-587
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• 2020

In this study, a new reaction system is proposed to solve the problems of the existing 2,3-Butanediol (2,3-BDO) dehydration reaction system. It was confirmed that the reaction system did not wok as it should operate properly when using a furnace, which is commonly used in commercial processes, to raise the reactant, 2,3-BDO, to the reaction temperature, 360 ℃, at near atmoshperic pressure. It is because of the substance considered to be oligomers of 2,3-BDO. It can lead to safety problems, such as blockages inside the furnace's tube and explosions, as well as tricky maintenance issues in the reaction system. To solve it, the temperature of reactant can be brought down by using a heat exchanger with High Pressure (HP) steam instead of the furnace, which has a hot spot problem through the vacuum operation and reduce the reaction temperature. It can be seen that the reactor performance is almost similar under the vacuum operation and the lower reaction temperature, 330 ℃, by using a reaction kinetics. This result explains why the new reaction system is proposed.