Kinetics Studies on Esterification Reaction of Acetic acid with Iso-amyl Alcohol over Ion Exchange Resin as Catalysts

In this work, the esterification of acetic acid with iso-amyl alcohol catalyzed by acidic ion-exchange resins (TULSION R T-62, T-63 and T-66 MP) has been investigated in a batch reactor to determine the intrinsic reaction kinetics. Iso-amyl acetate is synthesized in this reaction, has the fragrance of strong odor (similar to both banana and pear). The effects of various parameters on the rate of reaction (such as temperature, mole ratio, catalyst loading, and stirrer speed) are studied. The solid- liquid external mass transfer resistance as observed using various stirring speeds is absent and the rate of reaction depends on temperature. Further pseudo-homogenous model is developed for an intrinsically kinetically controlled reaction, which is free from either intra-particle diffusion or external mass transfer resistance. The rate expression developed in this work would be useful in the simulation and design of reactive distillation column for the production of iso-amyl acetate. The resultant kinetic model fitted the experimental data well. The activation energy is found to be 41.88 kJ/kmol for the formation of iso-amyl acetate.