Kinetics of esterification of methanol and acetic acid with mineral homogeneous acid catalyst

Abstract

In this work, esterification of acetic acid and methanol to synthesize methyl acetate in a batch stirred reactor is studied in the temperature range of 305.15–333.15 K. Sulfuric acid is used as the homogeneous catalyst with concentrations ranging from 0.0633 mol·L−1 to 0.3268 mol·L−1. The feed molar ratio of acetic acid to methanol is varied from1:1to1:4.Theinfluencesoftemperature,catalystconcentration and reactantconcentration onthe reactionrate areinvestigated.Asecondorderkineticrateequationisusedtocorrelatetheexperimentaldata.The forward and backward reaction rate constants and activation energies are determined from the Arrhenius plot. Thedevelopedkinetic model iscomparedwith the modelsinliterature. The developed kineticequation isuseful for the simulation of reactive distillation column for the synthesis of methyl acetate.