Feasibility of reactive chromatography for the production of 2‐phenyl ethyl acetate

Abstract

AbstractReactive chromatography is a novel process intensification option when the progress of a reaction is hampered by reversibility (e.g., esterification and acetalization). In this work, we study its feasibility for the production of 2‐phenyl ethyl acetate (PEAct) by esterification of 2‐phenyl ethyl alcohol with acetic acid using Amberlyst‐15 as a catalyst/adsorbent. The reaction kinetics is investigated in a laboratory batch reactor by varying various parameters such as agitation speed, temperature, feed molar ratio, catalyst loading, and particle size, and a Langmuir Hinshelwood kinetic model is proposed. The reaction is then studied in a fixed‐bed chromatographic reactor (FBCR). Non‐reactive binary adsorption experiments are performed in the same setup to estimate the corresponding parameters of the Langmuir adsorption isotherm. The experimentally observed reactive breakthrough curves in FBCR reveal that RC is a promising process option for the production of PEAct. Furthermore, it is shown that the FBCR model, which uses kinetics and isotherms developed in this work, explains the reactive breakthrough curves and the regeneration performance reasonably well. The work reported here forms a base for the design of a simulated moving‐bed reactor that may be used for large‐scale production.