Kinetics of Transesterification of 1,4‐Butanediol With Methyl Acetate by the Ion‐exchange Resin

Abstract

The dihydric alcohol transesterification of 1,4‐butanediol with methyl acetate catalyzed by the ion‐exchange resin is researched. The chemical system involves two transesterification reactions in series, with 1,4‐butanediol monoacetate as an intermediate product. The effects of the catalyst type, catalyst size, catalyst loading, stirrer speed, the initial reactant ratio, and the reactive temperature have been meticulously studied. The results show that this consecutive transesterification is exothermic and the experimental values of reaction enthalpy are −8.50 and −6.85 kJ/mol, which are in good agreement with the values computed from the standard formation enthalpy. Three kinetic models (PH, LH, and ER) are applied to correlate the experimental data, of which ER model gives the best result with the lowest mean relative error. The activation energies are calculated to be 38.53 and 51.06 kJ/mol by ER model, demonstrating that the overall reaction rates are controlled by the reaction on the catalyst surface.