Direct Synthesis of 1-Butanol from Ethanol in a Plug Flow Reactor : Reactor and Reaction Kinetics Modeling

• Bio-ethanol is well known for its use as a gasoline additive. However, it can be blended in low portions to traditional gasoline although it has a corrosive nature. By taking advantage of modern continuous reactor technology and heterogeneous alumina catalysts, ethanol can be upgraded to 1-butanol in fixed beds. Butanol has more feasible properties as fuel component in comparison to ethanol. Mathematical modeling of reaction kinetics revealed a simple kinetic model could be used to describe the complex reaction process on a Cu/alumina catalyst. The reaction kinetics model is based on five parallel reactions in which ethanol reacts to 1-butanol, acetealdehyde, ethyl acetate, diethyl ether and diethoxyethane, respectively.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Kemi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Chemical Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Bio-ethanol

Bi-butanol

Heterogeneous catalyst

Reaction kinetics

Fixed bed

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)