Process for in situ water removal from an oxidative esterification reaction using a coupled reactor-distillation system

A process for continuously removing water in situ from an oxidative esterification reaction, the process comprising:

• (a) conducting a first oxidative esterification reaction in a first reactor or reaction zone, wherein the total number of reactors or reaction zones is n and n is at least 2;
• (b) removing a crude product stream from the first reactor or reaction zone;
• (c) introducing the crude product stream to a first distillation column to generate a column overheads stream and a column bottoms stream;
• (d) passing at least a portion of the columns bottoms stream to a product recovery zone;
• (e) passing at least a portion of the column overheads stream to a subsequent reactor or reaction zone;
• and (f) repeating steps (a)-(e) for each subsequent reactor or reaction zone such that the number of distillation columns is n−1, and wherein the at least a portion of the column overheads stream contains less than 1 weight percent (wt %) water based on the total weight of the at least a portion of the column overheads stream.