  A new process for obtaining the ethyl esters of volatile fatty acids with
ethanol by using aluminium chloride hexahydrate as a catalyst is proposed.
Aluminium chloride not only exhibits good activity, composition equilibrium is
achieved within 4 hours at 343 K, but also induces a phase separation with a
convenient distribution of the components. In fact, more than 99 %wt of the
ethyl esters, together with most of the unreacted acid and ethanol, were found
in the upper layer, which was well separated from the bottom phase, which
contained the coformed water and over 97.8 %wt of the catalyst. The
intensification of this reaction and separation was thoroughly investigated and
the operational conditions optimised. The effects of this separation on the
purification of the final ethyl esters is fully investigated. A new
configuration of unit operations is designed for the specific production of
ethyl acetate, simulated through Aspen Plus V9 and compared with the current
industrial process based on sulfuric acid catalysis. The overall production and
purification of ethyl acetate is economically competitive, reduces the energy
requirements by more than 50 %, and is potentially a zero waste process,
resulting in cleaner production.
