Aluminum alginate as a solid catalyst for esterification of lactic acid with 1-butanol

Abstract

Aluminum-alginate (ALA) was used as a solid catalyst for esterification of lactic acid with 1-butanol at different temperature in a range of 55 to 85°C. Conversion of lactic acid was found to increase with increasing reaction temperature with the maximum conversion of 81.18% after 6 h of reaction at 85°C with 1-butanol to lactic acid molar ratio of 5 and 1%w/v of catalyst loading. The result was compared with the system using Amberlyst 15 under the same reaction condition. It was observed that ALA has a higher catalytic activity than Amberlyst 15. Experimental kinetic data were correlated by pseudo-homogeneous model with an assumption of ideal behavior. The kinetics of this reaction could be described using this model with minor errors. The activation energy for ALA-catalyzed esterification of lactic acid with 1-butanol was found to be 61.16 k J/mol.