Fast Esterification of Acetic Acid with Short Chain Alcohols in Microchannel Reactor

Abstract

Microchannel reactor was used for the fast synthesis of acetic acid esters, including methyl acetate, ethyl acetate, n-propyl acetate and n-butyl acetate. Effects of the inner diameter of microchannel reactors, dosage of catalyst, residence time, reaction temperature and molar ratio of alcohol to acetic acid on yields of esters were studied in the p-toluene sulfonic acid-catalyzed homogeneous esterification of acetic acid with alcohols. Yields of acetic acid ester reached 74.0, 70.1, 97.2 and 92.2% when methanol, ethanol, n-propanol and n-butanol were used as the alcohols, respectively and the residence time was of 14.7 min.