Reactive Distillation of Glycolic Acid Using Heterogeneous Catalysts: Experimental Studies and Process Simulation.

The glycerol oxidation reaction was developed leading to selective catalysts and optimum conditions for the production of carboxylic acids such as glycolic acid. However, carboxylic acids are produced in highly diluted mixtures, challenging the recovery and purification, and resulting in high production costs, polymerization, and thermal degradation of some of the products. The protection of the acid function by esterification reaction is one of the most promising alternatives through reactive distillation (RD); this technique allows simultaneously the recovery of carboxylic acids and the elimination of most part of the water. The reactive distillation, experimental and simulation, of glycolic acid was performed, based on kinetic and thermodynamic models developed. For the thermodynamic model, binary parameters of the missing couples were determined experimentally, and the non-random two-liquid (NRTL) model was selected as the most suitable to represent the binary behavior. The kinetic study of the esterification in the presence of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis concluded that the heterogeneous reaction can be accurately described either by a pseudo-homogeneous model or the Langmuir-Hinshelwood (L-H) adsorption model. Reactive distillation was conducted in a distillation column filled with random packing sulfonated ion-exchange resin, Nafion NR50

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Copyright © 2022 Mutschler, Aparicio, Mokbel, Capron, Fongarland, Araque and Nikitine.

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The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.