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Title:	Esterification of oleic acid
Author:	Patel, Niranjan Muljibhai
View Online:	njit-etd1964-014 (vii, 37 pages ~ 1.4 MB pdf)
Department:	Department of Chemical Engineering
Degree:	Master of Science
Program:	Chemical Engineering
Document Type:	Thesis
Advisory Committee:	Kreps, Saul I. (Committee chair) Mantell, C. L. (Committee member) Keeffe, George C. (Committee member)
Date:	1964-06
Keywords:	Esterification
Availability:	Unrestricted
Abstract:	The purpose of this paper is to determine the effects of catalyst concentrations and temperatures on the rate of reaction and energy of activation in the reaction system of oleic acid and oleyl alcohol. It is suggested by Flory2,3 that the p-toluene-sulfonic acid catalyzed esterification reactions follow a second order mechanism. The p-toluene-sulfonic acid is used in the present work. Two different catalyst concentrations were used at two different temperatures. The uncatalyzed reaction at the same temperatures was also studied. The specific rate constants are calculated and from that, the energy of activations are calculated using the Arrhenius equation. The energy of activation of the =catalyzed reaction is also calculated. The numerical values are given in Table VIII. The difficulty encountered in the present work is the slow rate of reaction at 50.0° C., at which a complete equilibrium was not attained, while at 90.0° C., equilibrium was attained in considerable time.