Kinetic Study of Catalytic Esterification of Butyric Acid and Ethanol over Amberlyst 15

Abstract

The esterification reaction of butyric acid with ethanol has been studied in the presence of ion exchange resin (Amberlyst 15). Ethyl butyrate was obtained as the only product which is used in flavours and fragrances. Industrially speaking, it is also one of the cheapest chemicals, which only adds to its popularity. The influences of certain parameters such as temperature, catalyst loading, initial concentration of acid and alcohols, initial concentration of water, and molar ratio were studied. Conversions were found to increase with an increase in both molar ratio and temperature. The experiments were carried out in a batch reactor in the temperature range of 328.15–348.15 K. Variation of parameters on rate of reaction demonstrated that the reaction was intrinsically controlled. Experiment kinetic data were correlated by using pseudo-homogeneous model. The activation energy for the esterification of butyric acid with ethanol is found to be 30 k J/mol.