Synthesis of ethyl lactate by catalytic distillation

A catalytic distillation process for the synthesis of ethyl lactate was proposed,starting from lactic acid and ethanol over ion-exchange resin catalyst.Experimental research work was carried out to investigate the effects of reflux ratio,ratio of ethanol to lactic acid, lactic acid feeding flux and feed location on ethyl lactate yield.In this experiment, the appropriate conditions were as follows:reflux ratio 1∶1,molar ratio of ethanol to lactic acid 4∶1, lactic acid feeding flux 0.6284 mol·h~ -1 ,feed location point A feed lactic acid and point H feed ethanol,and the yield of ethyl lactate reached 31.64%.The catalytic distillation tower was simulated with ASPEN PLUS.The experiment results agreed well with simulation.The results show that the proposed method is promising for further study.