20L esterification polycondensation reactor system

Configurations Description

This set of equipment is a typical laboratory esterification reactor system, which also serves the purpose of polymerization.

• The entire system consists of five facilities, corrosion resistant Hastelloy reactor, condenser, buffer tank, collection tank, and lifting and flipping bracket.

Corrosion resistant Hastelloy reactor: with explosion-proof motor, mechanical sealing shaft, reducer, and turbine stirring paddle. Top-openable lid, sealed by flange.

Condensers: two sets. They have different sizes and therefore different heat exchange areas, corresponding to different media.

Buffer tanks: two sets. They are equipped with quick external connections and can be connected to various meters or tubes as required.

Collection tanks: mainly used to store liquefied media.

Lifting and tilting support: this is a kind of mechanical support commonly used in WHGCM. In this equipment, the kettle body can be lowered and turned over by motor control, which saves physical strength for the research operator and facilitates the rapid cleaning of reactants.

•  Concentrated sulfuric acid as the catalyst and desiccant is used in this test, so corrosion-resistant Haar alloy is used as the material of the reactor (including the lower spreading valve). While for other parts such as the condenser, buffer tank, collection tube, and the location of the orifice, stainless steel is used.
• Concentrated sulfuric acid emits a large amount of heat in the process of water absorption, so no heating facilities are used in this test system.
• The volume of the reactor is 20 liters, in this volume, only a small amount of concentrated sulfuric acid can be used to ensure the esterification reaction.
• The excess of ethanol ensures that the reversible reaction proceeds towards the esterified side, and the absorption of water by the concentrated sulfuric acid also prevents hydrolysis.
• Since the reactants are added with excess ethanol, there are two sets of condensation and recovery equipment, thus ensuring the purity of the reactants.
• The two condensers are set to one high and one low, and each condenser has a valve so that ethanol and esterified material can be collected separately, which prevents the contamination of the reactants by ethanol.

This set of Laboratory Esterification Reactor System utilizes the exothermic reaction of concentrated sulfuric acid absorbing water to realize the whole reaction automatically to the esterification side. With ingenious design and reasonable structure, it is a rare fine product.

At the same time, since it has a volume of 20 liters, it is much larger compared with the general laboratory reactor system. Therefore, the esterification reaction carried out by it can also be treated as a pilot reaction. It lays the foundation for the collection of test conditions for the industrialized reactor in the next step.