Synthesis of 2-Ethylhexyl Acetate by Transesterification of Methyl Acetate with 2-Ethylhexanol

Abstract

In order to explore a new application field of methyl acetate which is of limited industrial importance, one of the possibilities to obtain the desired products would be the transesterification of methyl acetate with 2-ethylhexanol. The choice of catalyst and the determination of the best experimental conditions for the transesterification were investigated in this paper. Strongly acidic cation-exchange resin NKC-9 was chose as the catalyst in this reaction. The reaction time, the effects of the reaction temperature, the catalyst loading and the molar ratio of methyl acetate to 2-ethylhexyl acetate on the conversion of 2-ethylhexyl acetate were discussed. This paper describes an optimization study on the transesterification reaction based on nine well-planned orthogonal experiments. The maximum conversion of 2-ethylhexanol was found at a NKC-9 catalyst loading of 20 wt. %, a molar ratio of methyl acetate to 2-ethylhexanol of 4:1, a reactive time of 3 h and a reaction temperature of 80 °C. The product yield and the conversion of 2-ethylhexanol under optimal conditions reached 90.90 and 79.64 %, respectively. The structure of the product 2-2-ethylhexyl acetate acetate has been conformed by IR and ¹H NMR.