Synthesis of High-Purity Methylal by Reactive and Extractive Distillation

The process for production high-purity methylal, which used methanol and formalin in the presence of cation-exchange resin catalyst, was investigated in the reactive and extractive distillation column. Effect of feed mole ratio of formaldehyde in the extracting and reacting section, molar ratio of methanol and formaldehyde, reflux ratio on the content of methylal in the distillate were investigated. The results show that the purity of methylal can reach 99.1% under the optimum conditions.