• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.306-313
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• 2011

Lactic acid is widely used in the food, chemical and pharmaceutical industries, and there is an increasing demand for lactic acid as the raw material of polylactic acid, which is a biodegradable polymer. The presence of high boilers and non volatility of lactic acid makes the separation of lactic acid very difficult job. Esterification of lactic acid with methanol followed by hydrolysis of the separated methyl lactate was employed for the recovery of lactic acid. Reactive dividing wall column was proposed for the simultaneous reaction and separation. The intensified process poses a challenging control problem. Dynamic characteristics of the proposed process were examined and control systems were proposed to get a stable control performance for a disturbance in feed. Control performances of the proposed control systems were compared.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.342-349
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• 2010

Lactic acid is widely used in the food, chemical and pharmaceutical industries, and there is an increasing demand for lactic acid as the raw material of poly lactic acid(PLA), which is a biodegradable polymer. Lactic acid production has been changing over from production by synthesis to production by fermentation, since the fermentation process is more nature friendly and economic. However, the fermentation method generates excess water and impurities with high boilers. The presence of high boilers and non volatility of lactic acid makes the separation of lactic acid very difficult job. Also, the purification-separation process requires the many investment costs and energy costs. Reactive distillation concept was also introduced for the process, giving higher selectivity and yield compared to the convention method. We introduce a new highly integrated process, reactive diving wall column, to reduce the capital and energy cost for producing a pure lactic acid. The reactive dividing wall column combines reactive distillation and dividing wall column. We compared capital and energy consumption required for the purification of lactic acid the between the proposed design structures. And we examined the effect of major process variables on the process performance and determined optimal process.