Methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK) is a highly valuable product in the chemical industry. It is widely used as an extracting agent for heavy metals, antibiotics, and lubricating oils. Generally, MIBK can be produced by three-step and one-step liquid-phase methods. These methods are expensive and energy-demanding due to the high pressure and low conversion of acetone. A novel nano-Pd/nano-ZnCr₂O₄ catalyst was developed to produce MIBK with high conversion and selectivity of 77.3% and 72.1%, respectively, at 350 °C and ambient pressure, eliminating the need for high pressure in conventional MIBK processes. This study is the first that proposes a newly developed process of methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK) production using the low-pressure one-step gas-phase selective dehydrogenation of acetone. In this work, a novel process flow diagram has been developed for the production of MIBK using the developed nano-catalyst. The process was heat integrated, resulting in a 26% and a 19.5% reduction in the heating and cooling utilities, respectively, leading to a 12.6% reduction in the total energy demand. An economic analysis was performed to determine the economic feasibility of the developed process, which shows that the process is highly profitable, in which it reduced both the capital and operating costs of MIBK synthesis and showed a return on investment (ROI) of 29.6% with a payback period of 2.2 years. It was found that the ROI could be increased by 18% when the reactor temperature is increased to 350 °C. In addition, the economic sensitivity analysis showed that the process is highly sensitive to product prices and least sensitive to utility prices, which is due to the versatility of the process that requires only a low amount of energy.

中文翻译：

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丙酮低压一步气相选择性加氢生产甲基异丁基酮的工艺开发

甲基异丁基酮 (MIBK) 是化学工业中非常有价值的产品。广泛用作重金属、抗生素和润滑油的萃取剂。通常，MIBK 可以通过三步法和一步液相法生产。由于丙酮的高压和低转化率，这些方法昂贵且耗能。一种新型纳米Pd/纳米ZnCr ₂ O ₄催化剂被开发用于生产 MIBK，在 350°C 和环境压力下分别具有 77.3% 和 72.1% 的高转化率和选择性，从而消除了传统 MIBK 工艺中对高压的需求。本研究首次提出了一种新开发的甲基异丁基酮 (MIBK) 生产工艺，该工艺使用丙酮的低压一步气相选择性脱氢。在这项工作中，开发了一种使用开发的纳米催化剂生产 MIBK 的新工艺流程图。该过程是热集成的，导致加热和冷却设施分别减少 26% 和 19.5%，从而导致总能源需求减少 12.6%。进行经济分析以确定所开发工艺的经济可行性，这表明该工艺是高利润的，其中，它降低了 MIBK 合成的资本和运营成本，投资回报率 (ROI) 为 29.6%，投资回收期为 2.2 年。结果发现，当反应器温度增加到 350 °C 时，ROI 可以增加 18%。此外，经济敏感性分析表明，该过程对产品价格高度敏感，而对公用事业价格最不敏感，这是由于该过程的多功能性仅需要少量能源。