In an equilibrium reaction, simultaneous separation of obtained products will shift the re­action forward, thus further increasing the yield. In case of ETBE synthesis, simultaneous removal of the product (ETBE) and byproduct (H2O) could increase the yield of the target compound. Preliminary studies were carried out using the apparatus shown in Figure 12. In this set-up, the catalysts were placed at the middle of the column. Initially, an equimo­lar mixture of TBA and EtOH was placed in a round bottom flask in B, then microwave irradiated. The products (distillates) were condensed and collected outside the cavity. Af­ter 25 min, the collected products in the distillates (D) and bottoms (B) were analyzed of its composition.

Results in Figure 13, show that the bottom consisted of mostly H2O and unreacted EtOH, while the distillates consisted of ETBE, unreacted TBA, unreacted EtOH and H2O indicating possibility of simultaneous separation of the products. The future will look at the control and optimization of its operation to obtain better yield of the target compound.

Figure 12. Microwave apparatus for preliminary studies on reactive separation for ETBE synthesis