Patent benchmark: methyl lactate synthesis (CN104628563A)

Real patent replication, not an invented process: CN104628563A's acid-catalyzed lactate-ester route -- lactic acid esterified with excess methanol, then purified by vacuum distillation -- reproduced here as a continuous flowsheet. The patent's own worked methyl-lactate example reports 98.8% esterification conversion and 99.6% product purity at 120 degC/3h; this flowsheet's reactor conversion is set directly to the patent's reported 98.8% (not fitted), and the vacuum column (0.2 atm, matching the patent's vacuum-distillation purification step) reaches 98.75% methyl lactate purity in the bottoms -- within roughly 1 percentage point of the patent's claimed 99.6%, the gap being this flowsheet's own finite stage count/reflux rather than a fitted parameter. See the Patent Benchmarks docs page for the full validation table and citation.