Improved Esterification of Citric Acid and n-Butanol Using a Dense and Acid-Resistant Beta Zeolite Membrane
Zhengquan Yang,
Mingyu Peng,
Yu Li,
Xiaowei Wu,
Tian Gui,
Yuqin Li,
Fei Zhang,
Xiangshu Chen,
Hidetoshi Kita
Affiliations
Zhengquan Yang
State-Province Joint Engineering Laboratory of Zeolite Membrane Materials, Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China
Mingyu Peng
State-Province Joint Engineering Laboratory of Zeolite Membrane Materials, Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China
Yu Li
State-Province Joint Engineering Laboratory of Zeolite Membrane Materials, Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China
Xiaowei Wu
State-Province Joint Engineering Laboratory of Zeolite Membrane Materials, Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China
Tian Gui
State-Province Joint Engineering Laboratory of Zeolite Membrane Materials, Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China
Yuqin Li
State-Province Joint Engineering Laboratory of Zeolite Membrane Materials, Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China
Fei Zhang
State-Province Joint Engineering Laboratory of Zeolite Membrane Materials, Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China
Xiangshu Chen
State-Province Joint Engineering Laboratory of Zeolite Membrane Materials, Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China
Hidetoshi Kita
Environmental Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Sciences and Technology for Innovation, Yamaguchi University, Ube 755-8611, Japan
In this work, a dense and acid-resistant beta zeolite membrane was applied to improve the esterification of citric acid and n-butanol, for the first time. Through the continuous removal of the by-product water via pervaporation (PV), the conversion of citric acid was significantly enhanced from 71.7% to 99.2% using p-Toluenesulfonic acid (PTSA) as catalyst. PTSA was a well-known strong acid, and the membrane kept almost no change after PV-esterification, indicating the superior acid resistance of beta zeolite membrane. Compared to the use of acid-resistant MOR zeolite membrane by PV-esterification, a consistently higher conversion of citric acid was obtained using a high-flux beta zeolite membrane. The results showed that high water permeation on the beta zeolite membrane, with good acid resistance, had a strong promoting effect on esterification, leading to an improved conversion. In addition, the citric acid conversion of 97.7% could still be achieved by PV-esterification at a low reaction temperature of 388 K.
