Reactive distillation is a bidirectional (i.e. the process gains change sign over the operating range) and highly non-linear process. These characteristics reduce the controllability of the process and suggest that the steady state benefits of reactive distillation might not be realized with a simple control scheme. There are also insufficient degrees of freedom to satisfy the reaction and separation objectives simultaneously. An integrated control scheme is proposed here, using an ETBE column as an example, to address these problems by permitting the control objectives to be changed online in order to reflect changing economic constraints. The careful selection of controlled and manipulated variables allows this scheme to be implemented with linear controllers only. More complex control systems can be built onto the current control architecture, if required. In these cases, the current control structure will maximize the effectiveness of the advanced control application.