Economic Study of the Urea Alcoholysis Process for Dimethyl Carbonate Production

In this work, we study the techno-economic feasibility of the urea alcoholysis process for the continuous manufacture of dimethyl carbonate. We propose a superstructure for the urea alcoholysis process based on patents and research articles found in literature. In this superstructure, different reaction and separation alternatives have been considered leading to 54 feasible flowsheets. Due to the complexity of some unit operations (reactive distillation columns, azeotropic distillation columns) and the reduce number of alternatives (or at least not prohibitive), we performed an exhaustive search to determine the most profitable flowsheet using Aspen Plus. Results prove the feasibility of this process, as long as a good catalyst is employed in the process.