Thermodynamic prediction of the solvent effect on a transesterification reaction

In this work we re-evaluated the experimental data and now present a thermodynamic approach to consistently predict the solvent effect on both, the reaction equilibrium and the reaction kinetics. Accounting for the activity coefficients of the reactants/products obtained from the Perturbed-Chain Statistical Associating Fluid Theory (PC-SAFT) allowed for considering the interactions of the reactants/products among themselves and also with the solvent heptane. Accounting for those, it is shown that the solvent effect on the reaction equilibrium as well as on the reaction rate can even be predicted in very good agreement with the experimental data.