Kinetic study for hydrolysis of methyl lactate catalyzed by cation-exchange resin

The kinetic of methyl lactate hydrolysis over cation exchange resin D001 is presented in this work. The influences of catalyst loading, initial reactant molar ratio, and temperature on reaction were investigated. The reusability of cation-exchange resin was studied, no sign of deactivation was observed for the reused catalyst. The experimental data were correlated by pseudo-homogeneous model. The activation energy of the reaction was found to be 45.84 kJ/mol in the presence of D001. The equilibrium constant was found to be a weak function of the temperature because of the small value of the heat of the reaction. The pseudo-homogeneous model was found to represent the hydrolysis reaction over D001 fairly well. (C) 2009 Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.