Chinese Journal of Catalysis ›› 2015, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (10): 1759-1765.DOI: 10.1016/S1872-2067(15)60915-9

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Transesterification of glycerol with dimethyl carbonate over calcined Ca-Al hydrocalumite

Liping Zhenga, Shuixin Xiaa, Xiuyang Lub, Zhaoyin Houa   

  1. a Key Lab of Applied Chemistry of Zhejiang Province, Department of Chemistry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310028, Zhejiang, China;
    b Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, Zhejiang, China
  • Received:2015-03-23 Revised:2015-05-16 Online:2015-09-26 Published:2015-09-26
  • Supported by:

    This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21473155, 21273198, 21073159) and the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation (LZ12B03001).

Abstract:

A series of Ca-Al hydrocalumite with different Ca/Al ratios (1-6) were synthesized and used in the transesterification of glycerol with dimethyl carbonate (DMC) to glycerol carbonate (GC) under mild conditions. The calcined Ca-Al hydrocalumites were active with a selectivity toward GC that reached 97% at 93% conversion of glycerol over the sample with Ca/Al = 2 at 70 ℃, 3 h, and DMC/glycerol = 3. The glycerol conversion depended mainly on the proportion of strong basic sites in the calcined Ca-Al catalysts. The Ca12Al14O33 phase in the calcined catalysts was stable, but CaO was lost in recycle experiments and thus brought deactivation.

Key words: Glycerol, Dimethyl carbonate, Transesterification, Glycerol carbonate, Calcium-aluminum hydrocalumite