Kinetics Study of the Esterification of Acetic Acid with Methanol using Low-Corrosive Bronsted Acidic Ionic Liquids as Catalysts

The kinetics for the esterification of acetic acid with methanol was studied systemically in the presence of low-corrosive Bronsted acidic ionic liquids (BAILs) as catalysts. The effect of various parameters such as catalyst type, agitation speed, temperature, catalyst loading, and molar ratio of the reactants on the conversion of acidic acid was studied in detail to obtain the optimal reaction conditions. Moreover, the pseudo-homogeneous (PH) kinetic model was utilized successfully to correlate the experimental data in the temperature range from 323.15 to 343.15 K. Thus, a complete kinetic equation for describing this esterification system was developed that provides to obtain the kinetic information for the simulation and design of catalytic distillation column in the synthesis of methyl acetate.