Kinetic Study on Propionic using Alamine 336 in Petroleum Ether by Reactive Extraction

The growing demand for the production of propionic acid as it useful in chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry, preservations, drug delivery towards a more economical energy efficient technology. Reactive extraction is used over conventional method as conventional methods i.e., fermentation broth is expensive as well as unfriendly towards the environment. A specific extractant and various diluents are used in reactive extraction which gives us a promising technique for the acid extraction. Alamine 336 (TOA) was used with a combination of petroleum ether by varying concentrations. Physical and chemical extractions results are presented as equilibrium distribution, distribution co – efficient, extraction efficiency, loading ratio and volume percentage by varying concentrations. The propionic acid distribution between aqueous & organic phase reaches equilibrium over a concentration range of 0.04 kmol/m3 – 0.22 kmol/m3. The optimum TOA concentration is found to be 40% at which KD value for petroleum ether is 0.73. In petroleum ether the modified separation and loading ratio increases with decrease in TOA acid concentration in petroleum ether.