TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - ORGANIC CHEMISTRY - Preferred Process: The conversion of acetic acid in the hydrogenating and esterification steps are greater than 60%. The second residue stream and the alcohol are fed to the esterification unit at a molar ratio of acetic acid to alcohol of 1:1-1:50. The process further comprises: directing a second portion of the second residue to the first column as an extractive agent; directing a portion of the water stream to the first column as an extractive agent; separating a portion of the second distillate in a third distillation column to obtain a third distillate comprising ethyl acetate and third residue comprising ethanol; and removing the water prior to the third column. Preferred Components: The water stream comprises less than 1 wt.% of acetic acid. The second residue comprises the acetic acid (90-99.9%) in the crude ethanol product. The second residue comprises less than 1 wt.% of ethanol and/or ethyl acetate. The alcohol is methanol (preferred), ethanol, propanol, butanol, pentanol, and/or their isomers. The ester is methyl acetate (preferred), ethyl acetate, propyl acetate, butyl acetate, pentyl acetate, and/or their isomers. The ester product stream comprises at least one ester and the alcohol fed to the esterification unit, where the ester product stream is substantially free of acetic acid. The esterification unit comprises a strongly acidic ion exchange resin bed. The acetic acid is formed from methanol and carbon monoxide, where each of the methanol, the carbon monoxide and hydrogen for the hydrogenating step is derived from syngas, and the syngas is derived from a carbon source including natural gas, oil, petroleum, coal, and/or biomass. The ester product stream is reacted with carbon monoxide to form acetic acid that is directed to the hydrogenation reactor. The first residue and the second distillate comprise ethyl acetate. The third distillate is directed to the first column. The second distillate comprises water. EXAMPLE - The aqueous stream containing acetic acid (20 wt.%) was fed at the top of the reactive section of a column containing Amberlyst 36 (RTM: Macroporous sulfonic acid resin catalyst), and the methanol stream (99.7 wt.% of methanol) was fed directly below the reactive section containing the catalyst. The aqueous acetic acid stream was fed at 69.7 degrees C and at the flow rate of 2 g/minute. The methanol stream was fed at 39.1 degrees C and at the flow rate of 0.92 g/minute. The column was operated at atmospheric pressure. The top temperature was 60.4 degrees C and the bottom temperature was 100.2 degrees C. The distillate from the column was refluxed at the reflux (R/D) ratio of 1.45. The reactive distillation achieved 94% acetic acid conversion into methyl acetate. The composition of the distillate was methanol (60.5 wt.%), methyl acetate (39.3 wt.%), water (0.2 wt.%), and acetic acid (less than 0.01 wt.%). The composition of the bottoms was water (98.9 wt. %), acetic acid (1.14 wt.%), methyl acetate (44 weight parts per million) and methanol (48 weight parts per million).