Cordierite honeycomb monoliths coated with modified forms of ceria for the acid catalyzed synthesis of butylacetate via microwave irradiation

A series of solid acid catalysts like CeO2, CeO2-ZrO2 and SO4-2/CeO2-ZrO2 have been coated over monoliths by dip and dry process. Catalysts have been characterized by NH3-TPD for surface acidity, PXRD for crystallinity, FT-IR analysis for functionality, SEM and TEM for morphology. The catalytic activity of the synthesized materials is trialled by liquid-phase esterification of acetic acid with butanol. The catalytic activity is correlated with acid sites examined by NH3-TPD method. Optimization of reaction is carried out by altering the molar ratio, temperature, catalyst nature and time of the reaction. A detailed techno-economical analysis of the catalytic material and the procedure followed for the esterification reaction is also studied. In the techno-economical analysis, it is noticed that microwave assisted heating is more advantageous over conventional one. In case of microwave heating, the conversion of BA is 98% with a shorter reaction time of 12 min but in the case of conventional method of heating, it takes almost 6 h to get the above said conversion. It is further noticed that a comparative analysis of honeycomb over powder forms clearly states that, honeycomb forms shows almost 4 fold time increase in the conversion of BA compared to their powder analogs.