Hydrolysis of ethyl acetate using the cation exchange resin trilite SCR-B

Abstract

The reaction between ethyl acetate and water is an important reaction in chemical engineering applications. In the absence of a catalyst, the reaction rate is very slow and it is not economical for industrial applications. The objective of this research is to study the kinetics of the above reaction using the heterogeneous catalyst, Trilite SCR-B. This is a polymeric resin which is normally used for water purification. Several experiments were done at different temperatures to find out the activation energy of the reaction when this resin was used as the catalyst. The reaction performance under various catalyst loadings was studied. Results show that as the loading increases the rate at which the equilibrium condition is reached increases. The initial reaction rate shows an increase with the increase in reaction temperature. The activation energy was found to be 16.33kJ/mol.