Production of Ester by Reactive Distillation of Acid and Alcohol

Reaction of an acid with a hydroxyl compound forms ester and water as products. Ester is
separated from other products by distillation. Reactive distillation is an improvement of
conventional distillation by combining the reactive and separation section in one unit. The
problems associated with conventional distillation are limited conversion due to equilibrium
limitation, formation of azeotropes as well as high cost and energy consumption. The
advantages of reactive distillation are cost saving, breaking equilibrium limitation and favor
the elimination of azeotropes in the mixture. The aim of this project is to study the feasibility
of esterification of acetic acid with ethanol by reactive distillation as well as to study the effect
of alcohol to acid ratio and catalyst loading to the purity of ester. In this project, the product
ester is continuously separated from the alcohol in volatile phase by fractional distillation
while alcohol is recycled back to the reaction flask, thereby shifting the equilibrium to the
direction of higher equilibrium conversion of acetic acid. The experiment is conducted both in
the presence and absence of sulfuric acid catalyst. The ethanol to acetic acid molar ratio of 2:1
with 1 (% w/w) catalyst loading gives the highest ester purity of77%.