Study in Kinetics of Saponification Reaction of Diethyl Adipate with Sodium Hydroxide Solution under Reactive Distillation

Abstract

This research presents a new study in kinetics under reactive distillation by using consecutive two – step reaction : the saponification reaction of diethyl adipate with sodium hydroxide solution . The distillation process takes the role of withdrawing the intermediate product (sodium monoethyladipate SMA) which otherwise converts to the final product of low purity.The effect of three parameters were studied through a design of experiments applying 23 factorial design. These parameters were : the mole ratio of DA to NaOH solution (0.1 and 1) , NaOH solution concentration (3 N and 8 N) , and batch time (1.5 hr. and 3.5 hr.) . The conversion of DA to sodium monoethyladipate(SMA)(intermediate product) was the effect of these parameters which was detected .The results showed that increasing mole ratio of DA to NaOHsolution increases the conversionto a maximum value within the range of study.The effect of NaOH solution concentration decreases the conversion to a specified value within the range of study . The effect of batch time on conversion was decreasing the conversion to a specified value within the range of study . The maximum attainable conversion within the studied range of parameters was eighteen fold of thebase case.Reaction rate constant k and the order of reaction n of first reaction weredetrminedusing the differential method . The study attempted to determine n and k under the maximum conversion condition obtained in this system which corresponds to : feed mole ratio of diethyl adipateDA to NaOH solution of 0.3,NaOH solution concentration of3 Nandtime of1.5 hr.The study showed that the reaction order was 1.5and reaction rate constant was 0.8m3/kmol.s at a temperature of 100