Esterification of Glycerol with Acetic Acid over Highly Active and Stable Alumina-based Catalysts: A Reaction Kinetics Study

Abstract

The catalytic activity of Cu-or Ni monometallic and Cu-Ni bimetallic (Cu/Ni ratio = 3, 1, 0.33) catalysts supported on -Al 2 O 3 and SO 4 2-/-Al 2 O 3 catalysts were evaluated for esterification of glycerol. The reactions were performed in a batch reactor under reflux at standard reaction conditions: temperature 110 C, atmospheric pressure, glycerol to acetic acid molar ratio 1:9, and catalyst loading 0.25 g. The best catalytic activity was observed over 2 M SO 4 2-/-Al 2 O 3 catalyst, which showed the glycerol conversion of 97 % within 2 hours of reaction. At this condition, the selectivity to glyceryl monoacetate (MAG), glyceryl diacetate (DAG), and glyceryl triacetate (TAG) were 27.0 %, 49.9 % and 23.1 %, respectively, after 5 h of reaction. After three consecutive runs, the 2 M SO 4 2-/-Al 2 O 3 catalysts showed superior performance and no loss in activity was observed. The reaction kinetics results over 2 M SO 4 2-/-Al 2 O 3 catalyst showed that the dependence on the reaction rate to glycerol concentration was of pseudo-second order, while the activation energy was found to be 106 kJ mol -1 .