Optimization of Acid Activated Ngbo Clay Catalysts in Esterification Reaction Using Response Surface Methodology

In this study, Box-Behnken”s Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was applied to study the esterification reaction effectiveness of acid activated Ngbo clay catalyst. The esterification were monitored based on the process conditions of temperature, duration, amount of reactant, catalyst weight and particle size. The Box--Behnken’s Response Surface Methodology indicates that the acid clay-catalysed esterification reactions proceed through dual mechanisms of Acid-complex and Alcohol-complex mechanisms with the Alcohol mechanism dominating. The esterification efficiencies of acetic acid and ethanol by acid activated Ngbo clay catalyst optimized using RSM models indicated the estimated esterification percentage of ˃99%. The predicted and experimental values under the same conditions showed less than 5% difference thereby making the Box-Behnken design approach an efficient, effective and reliable method for the esterification of acetic acid with ethanol. The produced catalyst was optimized using A-One way ANOVA modelling, which indicated correlation coefficient of the regression of 0.9940, which implies that 99.40% of the total variation in the esterification reaction was attributed to the experimental variables. The result obtained indicated that the process could be applied in the esterification of acetic acid to avoid the drawbacks of corrosion, loss of catalyst and environmental problems.