ISSN (Print): 2328-3491, ISSN (Online): 2328-3580, ISSN (CD-ROM): 2328-3629 American International Journal of Research in Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics AIJRSTEM 13-225; © 2013, AIJRSTEM All Rights Reserved Page 114 AIJRSTEM is a refereed, indexed, peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary and open access journal published by International Association of Scientific Innovation and Research (IASIR), USA (An Association Unifying the Sciences, Engineering, and Applied Research) Available online at http://www.iasir.net Kinetic Study of Catalyzed and Uncatalyzed Esterification Reaction of Acetic acid with Methanol M.B. Mandake a , S.V. Anekar b , S.M.Walke c a Department of Chemical Engineering, Tataysaheb Kore Institute of Engineering and Technology, Waranangar, Kolhapur 416113, India. b Department of Chemical Engineering, Tataysaheb Kore Institute of Engineering and Technology, Waranangar, Kolhapur 416113, India. c Department of Chemical Engineering, Bharati Vidyapeeth college of Engineering, Navi Mumbai, India. I. Introduction There is an increasing the inclination of chemical industries toward new processes that should meets requirement such as generation of nearly zero waste chemicals, less energy, and sufficient uses of product chemicals in various application. Hence the esterification is widely employed reaction in the organic process industry. The reaction is carried out between carboxylic acid and alcohol at with or without present of different acid catalyst under such specific conditions. Esters are used as solvents of paints, adhesives and organic media instead of aromatic compounds. Esterification reactions are extremely slow; it requires several days to attain the equilibrium in the absence of a catalyst. To accelerate the reaction rate, catalysts are always employed in liquid phase esterification. Despite the strong catalytic effect, the use of homogenous catalysts, such as Sulphuric acid and p-toluenesulphonic acid suffers from several draw-backs, such as the existence of side reactions, corrosion of the equipment and the need to deal with acidic wastes. Homogenous catalysts may also result in sulphur contamination of the final ester product. In this situation, the use of solid catalysts has received increasing attention in the past years. Many solid-acid catalysts have been used, such as iodine, zeolite-T membrane, ZSM- 5, HY zeolite, zeolite beta, acid treated clays, heteropolyacids, copper catalysts, sulphated oxides and zirconia. Ion exchange resins, however, are the most commonly used solid acid catalysts instead of liquid ones. The goal of this work was to study the esterification kinetics of acetic acid with methanol in the presence of catalyst and in the absence of catalyst. The effect of the reaction temperature, the initial molar ratio of the reactants, the catalyst loading and the stirrer speed on esterification kinetics were studied. CH 3 COOH + CH 3 OH CH 3 COOCH 3 + H 2 O Most reactions catalyzed by ion exchange resins can be classified as either a quasihomogenous or a quasiheterogeneous. The kinetics of this model reaction catalyzed by Amberlyst-15 was described as a quasihomogenous and a quasiheterogeneous model. II. Experimental A. Chemical and catalysts All chemicals and catalysts were procured from firms of repute and used without further purification: Acetic acid (S.D. Fine Chemicals, Mumbai India), Methanol (Merck India), Amberlyst-15 (Rohm and Hass, USA). The physical properties of these resins are reported in Table 1. The macroporous resin was dried at 70 0 C for 6 hrs in vacuum drier before use. In all the experiment, the dried catalyst was used. Table 2.1:- Properties of Amberlyst-15 ion exchange resin Shape Beads Average particlesize (mm) 0.5 Internal surface area (m 2 /gm) 55 Capacity (meq /gm) 4.7 Cross-linking density (% DVB) 20-25 Porosity (%) 36 Max.operating temperature ( C) 120 Abstract: The kinetics of esterification of acetic acid with methanol will be investigated extensively for homogenous and heterogeneous catalyzed reactions. The experiments will be carried out in a batch stirred reactor at different temperatures by using ion exchange resin as a catalyst. The concentration – time profile will be observed for different sets of conditions. The effects of temperature, Catalyst loading and feed molar ratios on reaction kinetics will also be studied. The activation energy and equilibrium constants for this reaction will be determined experimentally at different temperatures. The temperature dependency of the constants appearing in the rate expression will also be determined. Key Words: Esterification, Kinetics, Heterogeneous, Catalyst, Methyl Acetate, Ion exchange resin.