Ethyl levulinate synthesis kinetics promoted by Amberlyst-15 catalyst

摘要

Esterification of carboxylic acids with alcohols is a very actual topic of modern bio-refinery. It is normally performed to produce value-added products, such as solvents and plasticizers [1]. This reaction is enhanced by acid catalysts leading to the formation of an ester (the main product) and water as a stoichiometric co-product. Different catalysts have been reported in literature [1,2]. Recent findings demonstrate that acid resins, such as Amberlyst-15, show good activity. This behavior is due to the nature of the catalyst itself. In fact, acid catalysts with high acidity, porosity and surface area are much more active in the reaction itself. Moreover, the chemical nature of the starting reactants (steric hindrance and carbon chain length) strongly affects the rate of the overall process due to possible diffusion limitations inside the catalyst particle. Ethyl levulinate shows promising applications in the field of inks and paints. It is synthetized from levulinic acid and ethanol in the presence of an acid catalyst, normally a homogeneous one (e.g. H_2SO_4). In the present work, an effort was made to investigate the kinetics of the levulinic acid esterification with ethanol in the presence of Amberlyst-15.