Synthesis of salicylate esters over cordierite honeycomb monoliths coated with zirconia based solid acids in vapour phase

Abstract

Solid acid catalysts such as ZrO2, Mo(VI)/ ZrO2, Pt-SO42-/ ZrO2 has been coated on honeycomb monoliths and characterized for their physico-chemical properties such as total surface acidity by NH3-TPD, crystalinity by powder XRD, functionality by FT-IR and morphology by SEM techniques. These solid acid catalytic materials are employed in the vapor phase transesterification of methyl salicylate with different alcohols. The catalytic property of these solid acids has been correlated with their physico-chemical properties. These catalytic materials are found to be very efficient in the transesterification reaction with up to ~98% yield of the desired transester. Reaction conditions are optimized to get highest possible yield of the desired transester.