Kinetic studies on heteropoly and mineral acids catalysed esterification of acetic acid with methanol

Center for Adsorption and Reaction Engineering on Surface (CARES), Department of Chemistry, Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, Purulia-723 104, West Bengal, India E-mail: nagendranath_mahata.chem@skbu.ac.in Manuscript received online 04 December 2020, accepted 24 December 2020 Esterification of carboxylic acid is a very important class of reaction in organic synthesis. Comparative kinetic studies of esterification of acetic acid with methanol catalysed by heteropoly and mineral Bronsted acids, viz. phosphotungstic acid, hydrochloric acid, sulphuric acid, and nitric acid were carried out. The investigation was done in the temperature range of 308 to 328 K. HCl exhibited distinctively higher catalytic activity than the other three Bronsted acids. Specific reaction rate with H3PW12O40 also was found to be excellent, particularly at higher temperature