Macrokinetics of catalytic synthesis of propylene glycol monomethyl ether propionate

Propylene glycol monomethyl ether propionate (PMP) was synthesized from propylene glycol monomethyl ether and propionic acid over macroporous strong acid ion exchange resin, and the pseudo-homogeneous second-order reaction kinetic model was developed. The kinetic data of this system were measured at boiling temperature of the reaction system in a batch reactor. The concentration of PMP as function of reaction time was established by solving macrokinetic model using Gear algorithm, then the squared sum of differences between calculated values and experimental data of concentration of PMP was minimized by nonlinear least square regression using Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm, and the activation energy was obtained, being 80.12 and 89.49 kJ/mol for the positive and reverse reactions, respectively. The data calculated from the model were in good agreement with experimental results, and the results of residual analysis showed that the model was reliable.