MSU Technologies

A Continuous Reactive Distillation Process for Citric Acid Esterification

Introduction

Depletion of fossil fuel resources, coupled with heightened awareness of environmental and health concerns, is providing impetus to search for alternative materials that are biocompatible, biodegradable, and based on renewable resources. Organic acids produced by fermentation of carbohydrate feedstocks constitute an important class of biorenewable platform chemicals that can be further converted to useful products. Tri-ethyl citrate, produced from citric acid and ethanol, is a non-toxic, biocompatible plasticizer that can be used in place of petroleum-based phthalate compounds. Phthalates have potential carcinogeneity and overall health concerns to the extent that they have been banned in Europe from use in children's toys and human contact applications. The potential application of tri-ethyl citrate as a plasticizer is currently limited by the lack of large-scale, efficient, and economic production facilities.

Description of Technology

This technology is a continuous process for the formation of triethyl citrate using cationic exchange resins as catalysts in a reactive distillation column. Triethyl citrate is a non-toxic, water-soluble, biocompatible plasticizer that could be used instead of petroleum-based phthalate compounds that are potential carcinogens.

Key Benefits