Study On The Esterification By Azeotropic Rectification And Microwave Heating

Carboxylic acid ester is a kind of important organic compound. It is obtained by the reaction of carboxylic acid and the alcohol in the presence of catalyst in the industry. Esterification plays a very important role in the chemical industry. And esterification is reversible. In order to achieve the goal of higher product quality ^ higher efficiency > less time consumption and fewer energy consumption, looking for the new esterification method and equipment become the hotspot of research development nowadays.Low efficiency and incompleteness of the traditional water separator during the course of the esterification reaction could be solved by using the new designed azeotropic rectification water separator equipment. What's more, it is easy to control in the course of reaction. Therefore, it can shorten the reation time and increase the esterification rate. It is showed by the result of the synthetic reaction of isopentyl acetate and ethyl lactate using the azeotropic rectification equipment that the reaction speed is improved obviously and the conversion of the lactic acid and the acetic acid areincreased by 6-10 percent ,compared with the traditional water separator equipment.The presence of microwave radiation improve dramatically the speed of the esterification reaction, especially in the solid phase. But in the liquid phase, the speed is lower down due to the effect of the difficulty of separating water. The new combination of the microwave oven and the azeotropic rectification water separator equipment can solve the problem. It is showed by the result of the synthetic reaction of the butyl ester rosin and the ethyl lactate using the microwave azeotropic rectification equipment that the reaction time is decreased by a half and the conversion of reactant are increased greatly.