Ethyl tert-butyl ether can be produced by ethonol and isobutene catalyzed by acidic ion exchange resins.A macrokinetic model for ETBE formation was developed.Owing to the nonidealities of reaction system

the microkinetics was expressed by a generalized Langmuir-Hinshelwood rate equation in terms of the liquid activities of the reactants

and the mass transfer inside the catalyst was described by means of the generalized Maxwell-Stefen equations using chemical potential gradients of the components as the driving force for the diffusional processes.The validation of the model showed excellent agreement with experimental data from the literature.