Kinetic Modeling of Palmitamidopropyl Betaine Synthesis

In this work, the reaction kinetics of betaine synthesis were investigated. Specifically, an integral method was used to analyze the experimental data of the amidation reaction over the temperature range of 413.15–453.15 K and the data of the quaternization reaction over the temperature range of 348.15–368.15 K. The 2 reaction steps were shown to match the second-order bimolecular kinetics model, and their equations could be deduced from the experimental data at different temperatures. The activation energy, E_a, and the pre-exponential factor, A, were obtained from the equilibrium constant at different temperatures using the Arrhenius equation. For the 2 reactions, the activation energies were 31.68 and 47.03 kJ mol⁻¹, respectively, and the preexponential factors were 26.99 and 4.07 × 10⁴. Over the tested temperature range, the kinetic model equations were verified by comparing the additional experimental data with the theoretical values. This study provides a theoretical basis for the continuous production of palmitamidopropyl betaine.