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

doi:10.3390/membranes12121269

Membranes (Dec 2022)

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

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes12121269
Journal volume & issue: Vol. 12, no. 12
p. 1269

Abstract

Read online

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.

Published in Membranes

ISSN: 2077-0375 (Online)
Publisher: MDPI AG
Country of publisher: Switzerland
LCC subjects: Technology: Chemical technology: Chemical engineering
Website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/membranes

About the journal

Abstract

Keywords