Esterification of Butyl Cellosolve with Acetic Acid using Ion Exchange Resin in Fixed Bed Chromatographic Reactors

Abstract

Chromatographic reactor is an attractive mode of operation that combines chemical reaction and product separation in the same unit. In this work, esterification of butyl cellosolve with acetic acid using cation exchange resin Amberlyst-15 is investigated in a chromatographic reactor. The study involves determining the appropriate kinetic model for the reaction by performing experiments at different temperatures, mole ratios of the reactants, catalyst loadings and stirring speeds. Characterization of the adsorption capacity of the resin for different components involved in the reaction is performed through adsorption experiments for the nonreactive binaries. The combined separation-reaction process is experimentally investigated using a fixed bed chromatographic column. A mathematical model is developed and the experimental data is compared with the model predictions. It is shown that the experimental and predicted data closely follow each other and that the high conversion can be obtained with a relatively high purity of the product.