Continuous Production of a-Terpineol from a-Pinene Isolated from Indonesian Crude Turpentine

Pine trees in Indonesia are largely of the pine mercusii species which typically give turpentine that contains about 82% a-pinene, 12% carene and is balanced with numerous other components such as camphene, B-pinene and limonene. When treated with water in the presence of an acetic acid catalyst, a-pinene is hydrated to become a complex mixture of monoterpenes, alcohol and hydrocarbons, although a-terpineol predominates. This a-terpineol is a valuable compound which is widely used as a fragrant substance in the cosmetic industry as an anti fungal agent in the pharmaceutical industry, a disinfectant, an odorant in the cleaning industry and as a mineral flotation agent in the mining industry. A conventional configuration for this hydration process involves two steps, chemical reaction of a-pinene in a reactor followed by a separation step in a distillation column. In this experiment, we combined both chemical reactions and separation by distillation in a reactive distillation column to reduce the production and operating cost. Steady state condition, feed plate position, pressure and volumetric ratio of a-pinene and CAA solution were investigated to study the effect of using this method. A certain ratio of 87% weight of ?-pinene and 5.3 M Choloroacetic Acid (CAA) solution as a catalyst were inputted to the reactive distillation column. The result shows that the highest purity of a-terpineol is 38.89 % weight.