Levulinic acid is an important intermediate chemical, derived from biomass. It is considered platform chemical as its derivatives have numerous applications in various fields. n-butyl levulinate is a levulinic acid derived ester which has wide applications, such as plasticizing, flavouring agent, solvent, and fuel additive. The present work deals with reaction parameters optimization using response surface method for n-butyl levulinate synthesis with Amberlyst 15 catalyst. The process parameters such as acid to alcohol molar ratio, catalyst loading and temperature have been considered. Under optimized conditions, the levulinic acid conversion of 97.03% was obtained. Intrinsic kinetics was studied based on the Langmuir Hinshelwood Hougen Watson model (LHHW) model and the activation energy was found to be 39.89 kJ/mol. The commercial viability of the process was evaluated for the capacity of 500 kg/h using aspen simulations. Conventional reactive distillation and divided wall reactive distillation schemes were evaluated and cost of production per kg of product was estimated. (C) 2018 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.