TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - INORGANIC CHEMISTRY - Preferred Components: The first reactor comprises a hydrogenation catalyst selected from platinum/tin, platinum/ruthenium, platinum/rhenium, palladium/ruthenium, palladium/rhenium, cobalt/palladium, cobalt/platinum, cobalt/chromium, cobalt/aithenium, cobalt/tin, silver/palladium, copper/palladium, copper/zinc, nickel/palladium, gold/palladium, ruthenium/rhenium, and aithenium/iron.    TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - ORGANIC CHEMISTRY - Preferred Method: The catalyst is used in the reactive distillation column. The reactor comprises a different catalyst than the reactive distillation column. The reactive distillation column comprises an acid catalyst. The liquid stream comprises acetic acid (less than 40 wt.%). The ester enriched stream comprises less than 10 wt.% acetic acid. The conversion of acetic acid in the reactive distillation column is greater than 15% (preferably greater than 40%). The total conversion of acetic acid in the first reactor and the reactive distillation column is greater than 90%. The method further involves removing non-condensable gases from the caide product stream prior to reacting with acetic acid; and removing water from the caide product stream using an adsorption unit or a membrane. 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, where the syngas is derived from a carbon source selected from natural gas, oil, petroleum, coal, biomass. The method further involves separating the first bottom stream in a second column to yield a second overhead stream comprising ethanol and ethyl acetate and a second bottom stream comprising water; and separating the second overhead stream in a third column to yield a third overhead stream comprising ethyl acetate and a third bottom stream comprising ethanol; and dehydrating the first bottom stream to recover ethanol and a purified water stream, where the purified water stream comprises acetic acid (less than 0.5 wt.%). EXAMPLE - No suitable example given.