Kinetics for the Esterification Reaction of n-Butanol with Acetic Acid Catalyzed by Noncorrosive Brønsted Acidic Ionic Liquids

It is very attractive that noncorrosive Brønsted acidic ionic liquids (BAILs) are used as catalysts in liquid catalyst-based reactive distillation columns, which avoids the technical difficulties raised from solid catalysts or corrosive mineral acids. The kinetics for the esterification of n-butanol with acetic acid using noncorrosive BAILs as catalysts was therefore studied systemically, to explore the possibility of BAIL-based catalytic distillation processes. The effects of various parameters such as temperature, catalyst loading, and molar ratio of the reactants on the kinetics were examined in detail, and a pseudohomogeneous (PH) kinetic model was used successfully to correlate the experimental data. The kinetic data are for the first time used to interpret clearly the synergistic effect resulted from the acidity and hydrophilicity of BAILs. It is also validated from the comparison of esterification kinetics between noncorrosive BAILs and Amberlyst-15 resin (a commonly used solid catalyst of strong acidity) that noncorrosive BAILs are talented and prospective substitutes for the establishment of liquid catalyst-based reactive distillation processes.