Aminolysis of ethyl acetate in continuous flow and its reaction kinetics

The aminolysis of ethyl acetate was promoted significantly via continuous reaction in a tubular reactor. N -propylacetamide was thus synthesized without presence of solvent and catalyst. The optimum conditions were obtained as follows: the reaction temperature is 218 °C, the reaction pressure is 3.5 MPa, the molar ratio (ethyl acetate: N -propylamine) is 1:1, and the residence time is 350 min. Accordingly, the conversion of ethyl acetate is up to 94.8%. Furthermore, the kinetics of the rapid reaction stage (when the conversion of ethyl acetate is 20%–80%) can be expressed as ln k = − 4629.44 1 / T + 2.1366 , and the apparent activation energy is E a  = 38489 J·mol −1 .