Heat Integration through Alkoxylation in Flow (funded by BASF)

Need
Currently about 800 kt/a of various alkoxylates are produced by BASF. With one exception, all of the processes are operated in batch/semi-batch. Consequently, heat-integration for these processes is not realized and the reaction enthalpy is lost. The potential to reduce BASF's carbon footprint by operating the alkoxylation processes continuously as a prerequisite for implementing heat integration is great.
Challenges
A first challenge is to run alkoxylation processes at sufficiently high temperatures to generate valuable heat, e. g. at 200 - 220 C to generate steam. In conventional semi-batch processing product quality is compromised by the formation of allylic alcohols as side products at such temperatures. It would be necessary to find conditions (processing windows) that yield the desired on-spec material at sufficiently high reactor temperatures.
A second challenge is to develop concepts for continuous production that produce minimal amounts of off-spec material, when many different specialties need to be produced throughout the year. Off-spec material results from large hold-up volumes in continuous production lines, when shifting from one campaign to the other. It compromises profitability.
Idea/approach
We propose to tackle the issue of heat-loss in batch-alkoxylation by developing small-scale (and ideally flexible) continuous production processes for straightforward heat-integration. To this end, we will explore alkoxylation reactions at elevated temperature of up to 220 C in a flow chemistry reactor that facilitates operating at elevated concentration and provides rapid heating and cooling of the reaction media. In this way we aim at reducing the adverse effects of allylic alcohol formation on product quality. The constant high temperature of the reactor will provide pressurized steam to be used in a heat-"Verbund" or for the generation of electricity.
The work will be complemented by a design study for a flexible, continuously operated...