Synthesis of a Novel Heterogeneous Strong Acid Catalyst from p-Toluenesulfonic Acid (PTSA) and its Catalytic Activities

Abstract

A novel heterogeneous strong acid catalyst has been synthesized through the copolymerization of p-toluenesulfonic acid and paraformaldehyde with sulfuric acid as catalyst. The novel catalyst owns the strong acidity as much as 4.0 mmol/g, while Nafion and Amberlyst-15 only has the acidity of about 0.8 mmol/g. Furthermore, the catalyst possesses the advantages of the high thermal stability (200°C) and low cost for the simple synthetic procedure. The catalytic activities of the novel catalyst were taken through esterification of acetic acid and ethanol and acetalization of benzolaldehyde and 1,2-ethandiol. The results showed that the novel catalyst showed much higher activities than the Amberlyst-15 and owned even the comparative activity to sulfuric acid, which made the catalyst hold great potential for the replacement of the traditional homogeneous catalyst for the green process.

Catalytic Conversion of Biomass-derived Carbohydrates into 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural using a Strong Solid Acid Catalyst in Aqueous γ-Valerolactone

“…The solid acid PTSA-POM was prepared following the literature procedure (Liang et al 2008;Fan et al 2010) with a slight modification. Typically, a mixture of PTSA•H2O (10.00 g) and H2SO4 (98%, 0.2 mL) was heated at 110 °C in a three-necked round-bottomed flask equipped with a reflux condenser and a magnetic stirrer.…”

“…According to a previously reported preparation method (Liang et al 2008;Fan et al 2010), the catalyst cannot be used in an aqueous solution. When the untreated catalyst was used in aqueous solutions, the weight loss was very serious and the filtrate color was black because of the dissolution of PTSA-POM.…”

Simulation of a plant scale reactive distillation column for esterification of acetic acid

“…Based on the observation made by Liang et al (2008) that the activities of sulfuric acid and PTSA are same, in the present work, the kinetic parameters reported for reaction rates with sulfuric acid catalyzed reaction (Alejski and Duprat, 1996) are used for PTSA. The overall reaction rate in the presence of a catalyst is expressed as:…”

Preparation of ordered sulfonated mesoporous polymer (OMP-TsOH) from p-toluenesulfonic acid and application in esterification reaction of fatty acids

“…The efficiency of oleic acid esterification was measured at 80 °C over OMP-TsOH-x, protonated Nafion (NR50), copolymer p-TsOH 43 and concentrated sulfuric acid. In the absence of acid catalyst, the conversion of oleic acid was only 5.15% in 10 h. The specific surface areas, acid densities, added amount of catalyst (H + = 1 mmol), initial rate of methyl oleate formation are summarized in Table 4.…”