Kinetics of Methanol Carbonylation to Methyl Formate Catalyzed by Sodium Methoxide

Kinetics of synthesis of methyl formate from carbon monoxide and methanol, using sodium methoxide as the catalyst and pyridine as the promoter in a batch reactor, was studied. Kinetic parameters such as the apparent reaction orders, the rate constant and the apparent activation energies were obtained.The experimental results showed that both the reaction orders with respect to CO and methanol equal to 1, the general reaction kinetic equation is (-r)=-dp(CO)/dt=k. p(CO).[MeOH], and the rate constant is decreased 6.44 k J/mol and the rate constant had increased more than 1.5 times when pyridine was used as the promoter in the catalyst system.