Kinetic study on the reaction of lauric acid with ethanol catalyzed by deep eutectic solvent based on cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide

Abstract In this work, a novel type of deep eutectic solvents (DES: CTAB–DES) based on cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) was successfully synthesized by mixing CTAB with p ‐toluenesulfonic acid monohydrate and applied as catalysts for the esterification reaction of ethanol and lauric acid. The kinetics of the reaction of ethanol and lauric acid catalyzed by CTAB–DES was investigated in the temperature range of 328.15–348.15 K. The influence of different parameters including agitation speed, temperature, catalyst loading, and the lauric acid to ethanol molar ratio on the conversion of lauric acid was discussed. The kinetic experimental data obtained were correlated by the pseudo‐homogeneous model, and the results show that it can predict the reaction process well. Moreover, CTAB–DES can be reused six times without any significant decrease in catalytic activity.