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Process Development for Methyl Isobutyl Ketone Production Using the Low-Pressure One-Step Gas-Phase Selective Hydrogenation of Acetone

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 hydrogenation 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.