Kinetic study on hydrolysis of isoamyl DL‐lactate catalyzed by NKC‐9

Abstract

The kinetics for hydrolysis of isoamyl DL‐lactate over cation‐exchange resin NKC‐9 was investigated in this paper, which was the prerequisite for a proper design of reactive distillation processes. The effects of mass transfer resistance, temperature, catalyst dosage, and the molar ratio of water to isoamyl DL‐lactate on conversion of isoamyl DL‐lactate were evaluated. The pseudo‐homogeneous (PH), Eley‐Rideal (ER), and Langmuir‐Hinshelwood (LH) models were then utilized to correlate the data obtained from experiments. Activities were used in the kinetics instead of the mole fractions because the reactants and products were not ideal. The activity coefficients were estimated by UNIFAC. It was demonstrated that the PH model was the best one to describe the hydrolysis of isoamyl DL‐lactate. The standard enthalpy was 5.46 kJ · mol−1 and the activation energy was 59.71 kJ · mol−1. Finally, the thermal stability and reusability of NKC‐9 were also tested.