The effect of temperature on the glycerol conversion to solketal
in the continuous-flow reactor was investigated. The experiments
were conducted at three different temperatures (40, 70, and
100C) while keeping other reaction parameters constant (i.e., acetone/glycerol molar ratio of 2.0, WHSV of 8.0 h
1
, pressure of
600 psi, 4 h time-on-stream). The results are presented inFig. 5.
For catalysts such as Zeolite and Amberlyst (both 35 Dry and 36
Wet), the reaction seemed to be mainly thermodynamically controlled: a higher reaction temperature led to a lower yield and lower conversion (exothermic reaction,DH
298¼30;058:40 J mol
1
).
In contrast, for catalysts such as montmorillonite, polymax and zirconium sulfate, the reaction was kinetically controlled: An increase
in reaction temperature led to a higher glycerol conversion and larger solketal yield. One can however note from the figure that the
yield obtained at 100C with the zirconium sulfate is actually
higher than that with Zeolite or Amberlyst catalyst at the same
temperature. It thus implies that what caused the reduced product
yield with increasing temperature for Zeolite or Amberlyst catalyst
is not due to the thermodynamic equilibrium, as discussed above,
but due to other reasons such as deactivation of these highly active
catalysts at an elevated temperature