Fatty acid esterification is increasingly realized as a reactive distillation (RD) process because of its formation being affected by the chemical equilibrium. The reactive distillation column performance for the production of isopropyl palmitate by esterification of the palmitic acid with isopropanot has been studied in the present research. The reaction was catalyzed in the presence of zinc acetate supported on functionalized silica gel catalyst. The process parameters such as total feed flow rate, reboiler temperature, palmitic acid feed composition, palmitic acid feed temperature, molar ratio of isopropanol feed to palmitic acid feed and reflux ratio were studied experimentally in the catalytic distillation column. Two types of models were used for the simulation of catalytic distillation column. These were (a) equilibrium stage model and (b) rate-based model. The predictions from the rate-based model matched with the experimental results qualitatively and quantitatively. The simulation study was also carried out to determine the effects of other important parameters and design factors such as the column pressure, distillate to feed ratio, feed location, catalyst weight, height of reactive zone and height of separation zones. A technically optimized RD process for the production of isopropyl palmitate has been proposed on the basis of the experimental and simulated data. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.