Research Information System
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN OIL CHEMISTS SOCIETY, vol.72, no.8, pp.891-894, 1995 (SCI-Expanded)
The apparent orders of the Lewis acid-catalyzed esterification reactions between castor oil and oleic acid are known to change with the catalyst used and with the reaction temperature. A mechanism is proposed in this study to explain the variations (with temperature) in the apparent orders oi the cobalt chloride-catalyzed esterification reaction between castor oil and oleic acid. According to the proposed mechanism, an acid-catalyst intermediate forms in an initial, fast quasi-equilibrium step, and this intermediate then reacts with the oil to yield the products and to regenerate the catalyst in the rate-determining second step. A general rate expression, with an acid concentration term and a temperature-dependent constant in the denominator, is derived from the proposed mechanism and is verified with data obtained at different temperatures.