Production of Liquid Methanol

sum of you might oledi know what am i really doin' for my postgrad studies and sum might not. just jotting down sum relevant things here just for you to read up if you want to, hehe.. try to understand, maybe sumday you can help me to finish this up! ;P

objective:
to produce liquid methanol by hyrolysis of methyl acetate via a milder route

raw material:
methyl acetate, calcium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid

equipment:
continuous stirred tank reactor (cstr) with hot water circulation

parameters:
temperature, concentration of methyl acetate, concentration of calcium hydroxide, reactor type, reactor volume, flowrate of feed

reaction path:
calcium hydroxide + 2 methyl acetate --> 2 methanol + calcium acetate

first i had to study on the parameter affecting the reaction in order to get the highest conversion, yield and selectivity of producing methanol. since there are 6 parameters, hence i decided to use the Taguchi Method to simplify the trials of experiments. in coparison to the traditional factorial method, Taguchi method saves a lot of time and budget of determining the optimum condition for the reaction to occur.

so, setting up the table for taguchi method, i came out with 16 trials of experiments with 2 level for each parameters, with different setting of parameters for each trial.

and as known, experiment had to be repeated for better analysis.. bukan sekali, but preferably more than two times.. currently am repeating for the second time.. just required from the lecturer to repeat for the third time. require for extra time, to extend maa.. bukan extend study time, cuma extend experimental work period.

one experiment took about 1-2 hours to be completed, taking average of 90 minutes per experiment, 16 trials require 1440 minutes, which equivalent to 24 solid hours~ i a day i may only spend around 4-6 hours for experimental work dur to other commitment need to be fulfilled. so, i need around 6 days to complete 1 whole set of experiment.. tu x tolak dgn preparation lagi.. so around 7 days - or 1 and a half week for the whole set. tu pun kalo betul betul committed with the work.. hehe..

so, tu lebeh kurang serba sedikit on wut i have been doing down here in utp, in the raction engineering lab.. mmg sgt membosankan sbnrnye.. hehe.. tapi demi bangsa agama dan negara kuteruskan jua perjuangan ini, chehwah~!! tak larat~!! hehe..

ganbatte to myself~!! ;P