Micro-reactor for Non-catalyzed Esterification Reaction: Performance and Modeling

Y-shape micro-reactor is designed, developed and implemented to investigate the effect of reactor miniaturization on chemical engineering kinetics, where, an esterification reaction of fatty acid (2- ethyl hexanoic acid) is considered as a case study. In order to investigate the differential change of micro-reaction conversion along the channel axis; a micro-reactor with multi-channel is designed in a manner that enables collecting the samples. The kinetics of esterification reaction of ethanol and fatty acid was explored under various operating conditions; Molar Ratio (MR) of ethanol to fatty acid at temperatures 25–65 °C. The conversion reached almost 99.3 % after 30 s at MR 4:1 and 25 °C. Steady and unsteady state axial dispersion mathematical models were developed; the latter approach resulted in fair agreement with the experimental results.