Synthesis and Kinetic Studies on Dimer Fatty Acid/Polyethylene Glycol Polyester

Dimer fatty acid polyethylene glycol polyester, a new kind of non-ionic polymeric surfactant, was synthesized by using dimer fatty acid and polyethylene glycol (400) as materials in this paper. The optimum reaction conditions of esterification were as follows: the molar ratio of dimer fatty acid (DFA)/PEG (400) is 1 / 1.20, the preferable catalyst is stannous chloride and the amount is 0.3% (w/w) of the mass of DFA, reaction temperature is 200°C, reaction time is 6 h. The conversion ratio of polyesterification can reach 98.11%. A new kinetic model of polyesterification reaction catalyzed with stannous chloride was presented. The Genetic Algorithms and Runge–Kutta were used to estimate the parameters of the kinetic model. The results of experiments and computer operations indicated that the reaction order is 0.998 to the carboxyl and 1 order to the hydroxyl. The activation energy obtained from Arrhenius plot is 97.18 kJ mol⁻¹, and the pre-exponential frequency factor is lnA = 21.39 kg² mol⁻² min⁻¹ at temperature range of 160 ∼ 190°C.