This work deals with kinetics and chemical equilibrium studies of esterification reaction of ethanol with acetic acid. The esterification reaction was catalyzed by an acidic ion exchange resin (Amberlyst- 15) using a batch stirred tank reactor. The pseudo-homogenous and Eley-Rideal models were successfully fitted with experimental data. At first, Eley-Rideal model was examined for heterogeneous esterification of acetic acid and ethanol. The pseudo-homogenous model was investigated with a power-law model. The apparent reaction order was determined to be (0.88) for Ethanol and (0.92) for acetic acid with a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.981 and 0.988, respectively. The reaction order was determined to be 4.1087x10-3 L0.8/(mol0.8.min) with

A novel encapsulated deep eutectic solvent (DES) was introduced for biodiesel production via a two-step process. The DES was encapsulated in medical capsules and were used to reduce the free fatty acid (FFA) content of acidic crude palm oil (ACPO) to the minimum acceptable level (< 1%). The DES was synthesized from methyltriphenylphosphonium bromide (MTPB) and p-toluenesulfonic acid (PTSA). The effects pertaining to different operating conditions such as capsule dosage, reaction time, molar ratio, and reaction temperature were optimized. The FFA content of ACPO was reduced from existing 9.61% to less than 1% under optimum operating conditions. This indicated that encapsulated MTPB-DES performed high catalytic activity in FFA esterificatio

The objective of this study was to develop neural network algorithm, (Multilayer Perceptron), based correlations for the prediction overall volumetric mass-transfer coefficient (k_La), in slurry bubble column for gas-liquid-solid systems. The Multilayer Perceptron is a novel technique based on the feature generation approach using back propagation neural network. Measurements of overall volumetric mass transfer coefficient were made with the air - Water, air - Glycerin and air - Alcohol systems as the liquid phase in bubble column of 0.15 m diameter. For operation with gas velocity in the range 0-20 cm/sec, the overall volumetric mass transfer coefficient was found to decrease w

      The ethyl acetate synthesis via heterogeneous reactive distillation is studied experimentally using ethanol and acetic acid. Three types of cation exchanging resins were used as catalysts: Zerolit 225, Zerolit 226 and Ambylite 400. Experiments were carried out in two units of the same dimensions. Each unit consisted of three sections: rectifying, reactive and stripping sections of heights (60+25+20) cm respectively and 2.5cm column diameter. The first unit (column-A-) was a fractionation type and the second unit (column-B-) was packed column. The packing type was hollow glass cylinders with 10 mm height, and 4, 5 mm inner and outer diameter respectively.

      The experiment

Mass transfer was examined at a stationary rectangular copper electrode (cathode) by using the reduction of cupric ions as the electrochemical reaction. The influence of electrolyte temperature (25, 45, and 65 ^oC), and cupric ions concentration (4, 8, and 12 mM) on mass transfer coefficient were investigated by using limiting current technique. The mass transfer coefficient and hence the Sherwood number was correlated as Sh =

Mass transfer was studied using a rotating cylinder electrode with different lengths of legs acting as turbulence promoters. Two types of rotating cylinder ,made of brass, were examined : an enhanced cylinder one, with four rectangular extensions 10 mm long, 10 mm wide, and 1mm thick, and an enhanced cylinder two with four longitudes 30 mm long,10 mm wide, and 1mm thick. The best performance was obtained for enhanced cylinder two at low rotation speeds while enhanced cylinder one was realized at high rotation speeds. The mass transfer enhancement as compared with a normal rotating cylinder electrode, devoid of promoters, is 53% or 58% higher. The enhancement percentage decreased as rotation speeds increased further, since, seemingly, ful

The synthesis of zeolite NaX from locally available kaolin has been studied. The operating conditions for zeolite NaX production from kaolin with good crystallinity were as follows; a gel formation step of metakaolin in alkaline medium in presence of additional silica to crystallize the zeolite was achieved at 60 oC for 1 hr,and with stirring. In ageing step of the reactants at room temperature for 5 days and crystallization step at 87±2 oC for 24 hr. The catalytic activity of catalyst prepared from local kaolin was studied by using cumene cracking as a model for catalytic cracking and compared with standard HY zeolite and HX zeolite catalysts. The activity test was carried out in a laboratory continuous flow unit with fixed bed reactor

This work was conducted to determine the volumetric mass transfer coefficient (Ky.a) infixed bed adsorption using hexane-benzene mixture by adsorption onto a fixed bed of white silica gel. Benzene concentration was measured by gas chromatography. The effect of feed flow rate and initial concentration of benzene in hexane-benzene mixture on the volumetric mass transfer coefficient and on the adsorption capacity of silica gel was investigated.

In general, the volumetric mass transfer coefficient increases with increasing hexane flow rate, and with increasing initial concentration of benzene in the mixture. The ultimate value of (Ky.a) was at 53 ml/min of hexane flow rate with benzene initial concentration of (6.53 wt. %), and it wa

The Esterification kinetics of acetic acid with ethanol in the presence of sulfuric acid as a homogenous catalyst was studied with isothermal batch experiments at 50-60°C and at a different molar ratio of ethanol to acetic acid [EtOH/Ac]. Investigation of kinetics of the reaction indicated that the low of [EtOH/Ac] molar ratio is favored for esterification reaction, this is due to the reaction is catalyzed by acid. The maximum conversion, approximately 80% was obtained at 60°C for molar ratio of 10 EtOH/Ac. It was found that increasing temperature of the reaction, increases the rate constant and conversion at a certain mole ratio, that is due to the esterification is exothermic. Activity coefficients were calculated using UNIFAC progra

Liquid-side mass-transfer coefficients (K_La) were measured in air-suction type fermentors using physical absorption of oxygen.  A fermentor of 0. 5 m i.d. was used with a working capacity of 60 liters of liquid. Tap water was used as the liquid phase, and air was used as the gas phase. The bioreactor mixing system consists of shrouded-disk/curved-blade turbine with six evacuated bending blades. The effect of liquid submergence (S) was investigated. Further, the effects of the ratio of the impeller diameter (D) to the tank diameter (T), and the clearance of the impeller from the tank bottom(C) were also studied.  The agitation speed (N) was varied in the range of 50-800 rpm. It was found that the value of  K