The combination of new technologies for achieving more efficient and sustainable processes due to their mutual integration is gaining particular interest in industry. In this study, the role of vapor membrane permeation technology in enhancing the catalytic performance of esterification of acetic acid with ethanol was considered. A computational fluid dynamic model was developed using COMSOL Multiphysics 5.4 as a software to predict the behavior of a zeolite membrane reactor used for carrying out the aforementioned esterification reaction. Reliable esterification reaction kinetics and water permeation mechanism through a zeolite membrane were used in the CFD model, comparing from a theoretical point of view the performance of a zeolite membrane reactor with an equivalent traditional reactor. After model validation, this theoretical study allowed to evaluate the effect of different operating parameters (operating pressure between 1 and 5 bar, feed molar ratio between 1 and 10, feed flow rate between 1.0·10⁻⁶ and 4.0·10⁻⁵ mol/s) on the performance of both the reactors. The theoretical predictions demonstrated the superiority of the zeolite membrane reactor over the traditional reactor during the acetic acid esterification with ethanol, reaching as best simulation results 99% AcOH conversion and 92% water vapor removal.

由于新技术的相互融合，因此结合起来以实现更高效和可持续的过程正在引起行业的特别关注。在这项研究中，考虑了蒸汽膜渗透技术在增强乙酸与乙醇酯化反应中的作用。使用COMSOL Multiphysics 5.4作为软件开发了计算流体动力学模型，以预测用于进行上述酯化反应的沸石膜反应器的行为。在CFD模型中，使用了可靠的酯化反应动力学和通过沸石膜的透水机理，从理论上比较了与传统反应器相当的沸石膜反应器的性能。经过模型验证后，^-6和4.0·10 ^-5 mol / s）。理论预测表明，在用乙醇进行乙酸酯化期间，沸石膜反应器优于传统反应器，其最佳模拟结果达到了99％的AcOH转化率和92％的水蒸气去除率。