Nuqui, Jesus Patrick E.

Results and Discussion

A tubular reactor is a type of reactor in which reactants are continually consumed
and products are continually created along its length. In this reactor configuration,
the concentration profile of reactants and products vary along the axial direction. In
this experiment, the reactants are sodium hydroxide and ethyl acetate which obeys
the following chemical reaction:

NaOH +CH 3 OOO C2 H 2 CH 3 OOONa+C 2 H 2 OH

The coefficients of the species for the reactants and the products are 1, which
makes the stoichiometric computation straightforward. The design of a suitable
reactor for favoring the shown reaction requires the determination of conditions
wherein substantial conversion had occurred. The concentration of sodium
hydroxide was determined by titration using 0.1M hydrochloric acid solution to react
with the base. The reciprocal of the concentration versus the mean residence time
exhibited a downward slope for this second order reaction. The slope obtained for
this plot was the reaction rate constant and the y-intercept was the initial
concentration both of which were initially unknown. The conversion of the sodium
hydroxide was a negative value which indicates that it was consumed as the
reaction in the tubular reactor progressed.
For this particular reaction, a greater conversion was observed under a flow rate of
50 mL/min, = 480 seconds, and a temperature of 30C. It means that the
conversion was enhanced under greater mean residence time in the tubular reactor
and at a lower temperature.
The activation energies obtained using the reaction rate constants for each
temperature conditions gave values that were offshoot to each other. Using data
from T = 30C andT = 35C, the activation energy was 217.6 J/mol and using data
from T = 30C and T = 40C, the activation energy was 173.4 J/mol. The activation
energy could be assumed to be within the range of those two values. Further
experimentation is needed to obtain a set of data where the computed activation
energy is near to each other in value since it is an indication that the recorded
concentrations are reliable.
Conclusion
The alkaline reaction of ethyl acetate with sodium hydroxide was investigated using
a tubular reactor. In this reactor configuration, the concentration profile of the
reactants and the products vary along the length of the reactor or with respect to
the axial direction. The space time, or mean residence time needed for a particular

reactant conversion and the activation energy of the reaction are the needed
parameters from this experiment that may be used to design a tubular reactor for
this reaction for industrial applications. For this second order reaction, the reciprocal
of the concentration and its corresponding space time were needed to determine
the rate of reaction and the initial concentration at a particular temperature from
the resulting straight-line plot. The y-intercept of the straight-line plot is the initial
concentration and the slope is the rate of reaction.
It was observed that the reactants, sodium hydroxide and ethyl acetate, were
effectively converted into products when the space time was higher and when the
temperature was lower. Increasing the temperature resulted to a lower conversion
regardless of having the same space time. It also follows that at the same
temperature, lowering the space time which was done by increasing the flow rate
resulted to a lower conversion of reactants. Therefore, to increase the conversion of
the reactants and products, the reaction should be carried out at a lower
temperature and at a slower flow rate. There are myriad of optimal combination for
a favorable flow rate and temperature which require further experimentation if such
a reaction is needed for industrial applications where the economics of the process
is under consideration.