Kinetic Study of the Formation of Isopropyl Alcohol by Transesterification of Isopropyl Acetate with Methanol in the Presence of Heterogeneous Catalyst

The kinetics of the transesterification of isopropyl acetate with methanol to methyl acetate and isopropyl alcohol catalyzed by Lewatit MonoPlus S100 H+ was studied in a pressurized batch reactor. In the temperature range 323-338 K, the temperature dependency of the equilibrium constant was found to be K-a = exp[(702/T) - 1.81]. The kinetics was expressed in terms of activities because of the nonideality of the reaction medium. The experimental data were tested with " a pseudohomogeneous model and adsorption based models. The transesterification reaction was found to follow the Langmuir-Hinshelwood-Hougen-Watson mechanism and the surface reaction to be a rate-limiting step.