Investigation of molecular interaction, performance of green solvent in esterification of ethanol and acetic acid at 298.15 K and at 1 atm

Abstract

AbstractIn the present study, the potential of a selective green solvent for the low temperature esterification were analysed. Hence, 1‐ethyl‐3‐methylimidazolium hydrogen sulphate {[EMIM][HSO4]},1‐ethyl‐3‐methylimidazolium ethylsulphate {[EMIM][EtSO4]}, choline chloride glycerol {[ChCl][Gly]} and choline chloride acetic acid {[ChCl][AA]} were chosen as a selective green solvent. Whereas water, ethanol, acetic acid can be treated as molecular solvent used in the esterification process. In this reason, density of eight binary mixtures over the entire mole fractions were measured at different temperature ranges. The results have been used to calculate the excess and derived thermodynamic properties, to measure the strength of molecular interaction between mixing components. Further, the sigma profile and sigma potential plot were generated and analysed. According to density, volumetric properties, molecular polarity results, 1‐ethyl‐3‐methylimidazolium hydrogen sulphate [EMIM][HSO4] was chosen as green solvent for the green esterification process. Finally, [EMIM][HSO4] based low temperature esterification were conducted at 298.15 K and 1 atm. 80.96% of n‐BuAc was achieved.