The invention relates to a method for producing oxalic ester by
gas phase CO
coupling, which mainly solves the problems of low selectivity of the target product oxalic ester and low conversion per pass of the raw materials in the prior art. In the method, a technical scheme is adopted as follows: CO and
nitrous acid ester in mol ratio of 1-5:1 are used as raw materials; a first batch of
raw material as a
cooling medium passes through tubes of a first tube-type
fixed bed reactor, after heat exchange, enters a second
fixed bed reactor, contacts with a
palladium-containing catalyst II in a catalyst
bed II in the reactor for reaction to generate a reaction
effluent I containing the oxalic ester; and a
gas phase effluent II containing CO is obtained by gas-liquid separation of the reaction
effluent I, and is uniformly mixed with a second batch of
raw material containing the fresh component
nitrous acid ester, and the mixture is returned into the first tube-type
fixed bed reactor, contacts with a
palladium-containing catalyst I in a catalyst
bed I outside the tubes for reaction to generate the reaction effluent containing the oxalic ester, wherein the total mol ratio of CO to
nitrous acid ester in the
raw material is 1-4:1, the mol ratio of the second batch of
nitrous acid ester to the first batch of
nitrous acid ester material is 0.2-5:1, and at least two reactors are connected in series. By using the method, the problems can be better solved and the method can be used in the industrial production for increasing the yield of the oxalic ester.