Kinetics study on esterification of acrylic acid and ethanol over acidic cation-exchange resin beads Amberlyst 35

Abstract The heterogeneous kinetics and adsorption behavior for the esterification of acrylic acid and ethanol were studied by using a fixed-bed reactor over an acidic cation-exchange resin beads, Amberlyst 35. The reaction experiments were conducted at 318.15 K–348.15 K under atmospheric pressure. The influences of molar ratios of ethanol to acrylic acid in the feed ( θ Bo ) and the mass transfer resistances on the kinetic behavior were also investigated. The experimental results show that the equilibrium conversion of acrylic acid increases with increasing reaction temperature and  θ Bo . Moreover, the adsorption experiments were also made to determine the relative adsorption strengths among the reacting species. The results reveal that the magnitude of adsorption strengths obeyed the sequence of water > acrylic acid > ethanol > ethyl acrylate. The kinetic data obtained from the present study were correlated with the ideal-quasi-homogeneous (IQH), the non-ideal-quasi-homogeneous (NIQH), the Langmuir-Hinshelwood-Hougen-Waston (LHHW), the Eley-Rideal (ER) models, the modified LHHW (M-LHHW) and the modified ER (M-ER). The best-fitted values of the kinetic parameters were reported. The correlated results indicated that the M-LHHW model provides the best representation for this reaction system.