Kinetics of liquid phase synthesis of tert-amyl ethyl ether from tert-amyl alcohol and ethanol over Amberlyst 16

This work concerns catalyst screening for the synthesis of tert-amyl ethyl ether (TAEE) from a liquid-phase reaction between tert-amyl alcohol (TAA) and ethanol (EtOH). Various commercial catalysts, i.e., Amberlyst 15, Amberlyst 16, Amberlyst 36, Amberlyst 131, β-zeolite with Si/Al = 13.5 and 40, and Dowex 50WX8, were tested by performing the reaction in a semi-batch reactor operated at temperature of 353 K and pressure of 810.4 kPa. The dehydration of TAA to IA was found to be a major side reaction in this system. Amberlyst 16 shows the best performance in terms of selectivity and yield. Therefore, it was further investigated in the kinetic study. Three temperature levels of 333, 343 and 353 K were performed to obtain the parameters in the Arrhenius's equation of the reaction rate constant and the Van’t Hoff equation of water and ethanol sorption equilibrium. Two activity-based kinetic models of Langmuir–Hinshelwood (L–H) and Power Law (PL) were fitted with the experimental results. It was observed that the L–H model showed the best reaction rate description. The mole fraction-based PL model is also included in this study to follow the requirement of the ASPEN PLUS program.