| abstract |
A reaction distillation apparatus which can be applied to a relatively complicated reaction comprising the combination of two or more stages of equilibrium reactions, and a reaction distillation method which can efficiently conduct this reaction. Raw material feed pipes (5, 6 and 7) are connected to a reaction distillation column (1). These raw material feed pipes (5, 6 and 7) are sequentially disposed at mutually different stages from the column top. More preferably, the reaction distillation column (1) is equipped with stages not having a raw material feed pipe connected thereto, between the first stage at which the raw material feed pipe (5) is connected and the second stage at which the raw material feed pipe (6) is connected, and between the second stage and the third stage at which the raw material feed pipe (7) is connected. The raw material (A) is supplied from the raw material feed pipe (5), the raw material (B) is supplied from the raw material feed pipe (6) and the raw material (E) is supplied from the raw material feed pipe (7). In this way, the raw materials (A) and (B) are brought into the gas-liquid contact while the product (C) and the raw material (E) are brought into the gas-liquid contact. |