Toward Realistic Design of Reactive Distillation Processes: Significance of Impurities in the Feed

Despite the maturity of distillation research, many simulation-based studies continue to rely on pure feed compositions that often diverge from real industrial conditions. This tendency could be driven by confidentiality constraints, academic simplifications and/or the pursuit of specific research goals, which limit the practical relevance of such work. Motivated by the need for more realistic process simulations, this study examines how feed stream impurities affect the design and economic performance of a reactive distillation (RD) process for producing ethyl levulinate (LAEE), a promising biobased fuel additive. Two configurations, i.e., a neat and an excess design, were evaluated against a base case adapted from the literature. Our simulation results suggest that, when impurities are introduced, the neat design requires several additional separation units, resulting in a ∼20% increase in reboiler duty and a notable rise in total annual cost (TAC). In contrast, the excess design demonstrates greater resilience, achieving nearly complete ethanol conversion while reducing reboiler duty by ∼9% and slightly lowering TAC (∼3%) compared to the base case. These findings highlight the importance of integrating realistic feed scenarios into research on process design. Overall, the excess configuration offers a more robust and economically attractive pathway for industrial-scale LAEE production.