Study of alcoholysis of anhydrides and epoxidation of olefinic ester over solid acid catalysts

Abstract

Catalysts assume critical importance in most of the chemical industries Syntheses of fine and specialty chemicals in industries have been largely aided by catalysts But most of the chemical industries still use hazardous mineral acids and Lewis acids as catalysts These catalysts are newlinehomogeneous and pose problems like difficulty in separation reuse corrosion toxicity disposal etc In view of severe environmental legislation such environmentally risky processes are required to be avoided by replacing with ecofriendly heterogeneous catalysts These catalysts allow easier workup and isolation of derived products Among the heterogeneous catalysts newlinesolid acids such as zeolites are important as they possess high surface area adjustable adsorption properties tunable acidity high thermal and hydrothermal stability and channels of molecular dimension that confer selectivity features These are the potential catalysts in refinery and newlinepetrochemical industries Recently there has been many reports on their exploitation in the synthesis of fine and specialty chemicals In spite of their tremendous applications as catalyst there are a few problems like difficulty in processing bulky molecules and diffusional constraints To overcome these problems mesoporous materials with pore diameter greater them 20Å have newlinereported for catalytic applications Mesoporous Al MCM 41 molecular sieves are the most exploited one for catalytic applications newline