This article aims at synthesizing an estimator based hybrid control scheme that consists of a high gain nonlinear observer and the extended generic model controller (EGMC) that is developed by the application of differential geometry theory. The model-based EGMC control system demands the knowledge of some physical state variables of the process and therefore, the development of a suitable algorithm to perform the state estimation has captured the attention. Here, we design a high gain observer so that it estimates a limited number of states which are solely required for the controller simulation. As a consequence, there exists a significant structural discrepancy. Despite this large mismatch, the state observer performs satisfactorily in converging the estimation error for the case of an example ethylene glycol reactive distillation system. With the same reduced-order predictor model, a comparison is also made between the high gain observer and the extended Kalman filter (EKF). Finally, the high gain observer based EGMC control structure shows promising performance in regulating the ethylene glycol column. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.