Performance study of pervaporation reactor (PVR) for esterification of acetic acid with ethanol

The most common reaction system studied for the application of pervaporation (PV) is an esterification reaction between alcohol and acid in the presence of a catalyst. In present paper, performance of pervaporation reactor (PVR) for esterification of acetic acid with ethanol was studied. Model equations were developed for reaction and separation in PVR. Model results were validated with experimental results and excellent comparison was obtained. The effect of various parameters such as: reactant ratio, ratio of effective membrane area to volume of reacting mixture, catalyst concentration and flux on the performance of PVR were discussed. The optimum conditions were obtained as: membrane area to volume of reacting mixture = 2 m-1 reactant ratio = 1.5, catalyst concentration = 50 g/l for esterification of acetic acid with ethanol in PVR. The model presented can also be used for the other esterification reactions. The described model allows the evolution of the reaction time necessary to achieve a given conversion. The process parameters: temperature, catalyst concentration, initial molar ratio of acid to alcohol, the ratio of the effective membrane area to the volume of reacting mixture can be changed in order to attain the optimum operating conditions of the pervaporation-esterification coupling operating. © 2010 The Berkeley Electronic Press. All rights reserved.