Purification process design in the production of styrene monomer

An economic study of two alternatives for styrene monomer purification based on equilibrium staged processes is presented. For this purpose, the solubility of t-butylcatechol (TBC) in styrene and the styrene–water liquid–liquid equilibrium were experimentally determined. In terms of economics, a combined process extraction–distillation shows worse results than a conventional distillation process, for the styrene purification, but this process could be suitable in a high energy cost scenario. Measured activity coefficients NRTL model and UNIFAC predictive model were used for the process optimization.