Dimethyl carbonate (DMC) is an environmentally friendly agent with low toxicity and fast biodegradability. DMC synthesis by transesterification of propylene carbonate with methanol has been developed as a cost-efficient option. However, even reactive distillation combined with a series of distillation columns requires significant energy and capital cost. To solve these problems, a novel pervaporation-assisted pressure swing reactive distillation process is proposed in this work as an eco-efficient solution for the transesterification synthesis route.

Rigorous simulations were carried out in Aspen Plus, using a custom pervaporation model developed in Aspen Custom Modeler (ACM). Pervaporation (PV) is used for the efficient separation of DMC/MeOH azeotrope, and employs polydimethylsiloxane / polyvinylidene fluoride (PDMS/PVDF) composite membrane. The membrane area is optimized to minimize total annual cost (TAC) of the process. Energy integration by Pinch Analysis was also carried out using Aspen Energy Analyzer to determine the optimal heat exchangers network.

The results show that the new intensified PSRD-PV process is more competitive compared with the reference reactive distillation (RD) process reported in literature, allowing about 32 % energy savings (due to the ability of PV to separate an azeotrope without distillation), around 42 % lower annual cost (1.72 M$ yr⁻¹), as well as largely improved sustainability metrics.

碳酸二甲酯（DMC）是一种环境友好的试剂，具有低毒性和快速的生物降解性。通过碳酸亚丙酯与甲醇的酯交换反应进行DMC合成已成为一种经济高效的选择。然而，即使将反应性蒸馏与一系列蒸馏塔组合也需要大量的能量和资本成本。为了解决这些问题，在这项工作中提出了一种新颖的全蒸发辅助变压反应精馏方法，作为酯交换合成路线的一种生态高效的解决方案。

使用在Aspen Custom Modeler（ACM）中开发的自定义渗透蒸发模型，在Aspen Plus中进行了严格的模拟。全蒸发（PV）用于有效分离DMC / MeOH共沸物，并使用聚二甲基硅氧烷/聚偏二氟乙烯（PDMS / PVDF）复合膜。对膜面积进行了优化，以使该过程的年度总成本（TAC）最小化。还使用Aspen能源分析仪通过捏合分析进行了能源整合，以确定最佳的热交换器网络。

结果表明，与文献报道的参考反应蒸馏（RD）方法相比，新的强化PSRD-PV工艺更具竞争力，可节省约32％的能量（由于PV无需蒸馏即可分离共沸物）。年度成本降低了42％（每年172万美元^-1），并且大大改善了可持续性指标。