Question

How is diethyl ether prepared by continuous etherification process?

Answer 1

Excess of $ethanol$ is distilled with conc $sulphuricacid$ at 413 K to give $diethylether$.
$2C_2{H}_5-OH\underset{413K}{\overset{conc.H_{2}S{O}_4}{\to }}{C}_2{H}_5-O-C_2{H}_5+H_{2}O$
Experimental process: Equal volumes of $ethanol$ and conc. $sulphuricacid$ are kept in distillation flask. $Ethanol$ reacts with conc. $sulphuricacid$ to give $ethyl:hydrogensulphate$. Then excess $ethanol$ is added to distillation flask, which then reacts with $ethyl:hydrogensulphate$ to form $diethylether$.
The $diethylether$ produced distills over. $sulphuricacid$ is regenerated in second step and is reused in first step. Hence, small amount of $sulphuricacid$ converts large amount of $Ethanol$ into $diethylether$ and the process becomes continuous. Hence, the process is named continuous etherification process.