Manufacture of n-Propyl Propionate Using Ion Exchange Resins: Reaction Kinetics and Feasibility of Reactive Distillation

Reshma R. Devale (Department of Chemical Engineering, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University, Lonere, Maharashtra 402103)
Bipin S. Deogharkar (Department of Chemical Engineering, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University, Lonere, Maharashtra 402103)
Yogesh S. Mahajan (Department of Chemical Engineering, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University, Lonere, Maharashtra 402103)

Bulletin of Chemical Reaction Engineering & Catalysis
2022: BCREC Volume 17 Issue 4 Year 2022 (December 2022)

Reaction kinetics of esterification of propionic acid with 1-propanol to produce n-propyl propionate using Amberlyst-15 as a catalyst was investigated in this work. Effect of various parameters was studied. Initially, the efficacy of different catalysts was investigated which revealed that Amberlyst-15 can be suitably used for the reaction. This was followed by mass transfer exclusion which included effect of agitation speed, catalyst size and calculation of Weisz-Prater Criterion. Parameters selected for kinetic study were mole ratio of propionic acid to 1-propanol, temperature, catalyst loading and initial water concentration. Catalyst reusability was also verified. Aspen      Custom Modeler (ACM) was used to regress kinetic parameters and a good match was obtained. Reactive Distillation (RD) runs in the batch mode were performed which showed that RD is a better option for process intensification (PI) for this reaction. Copyright © 2022 by Authors, Published by BCREC Group. This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0).