Method for the production of dimethyl ether

摘要

A process for the production of dialkyl ether, the process including: feeding a stream comprising an alkyl alcohol to a distillation column reactor system; concurrently in the distillation column reactor system: i) contacting the alkyl alcohol with a catalytic distillation structure in a distillation reaction zone thereby catalytically reacting at least a portion of the alkyl alcohol to form a corresponding dialkyl ether and water; and ii) fractionating the resulting dialkyl ether from the water; operating the distillation column reactor system to obtain substantially complete conversion of the alkyl alcohol to form the corresponding dialkyl ether and water; recovering the dialkyl ether from the distillation column reactor as an overheads fraction; recovering the water from the distillation column reactor as a bottoms fraction.