Etherification in cyclohexane/DBSA/water microemulsion system

✍ Scribed by Kun Song; Ying Chu; Lihong Dong; Jinling Song; Dan Wang

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 451 KB
• Volume: 282
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1381-1169
• DOI: 10.1016/j.molcata.2007.12.003

✦ Synopsis

Etherification reaction of hexanol and tert-butyl alcohol in the cyclohexane/dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid (DBSA)/water reverse microemulsion system has been investigated. The effect of several parameters, such as molar ratio of reactants, concentration of DBSA, reaction temperature, w 0 ([H 2 O]/[surfactant]) value and various substrates, on the etherification was also studied. The results showed that the optimal reaction conditions for the etherification were as follows: T = 318 K, w 0 = 2, molar ratio of reactants was 1:1.2 and c DBSA = 0.05 M. Furthermore, the comparison reactions in several surfactant systems were also performed and the results showed that the conversion in DBSA system was the highest, which proved the key factor affecting the conversion of the reactants was intrinsic nature of DBSA as a Brønsted acid-surfactant-combined catalyst. Finally, the mechanism of reaction was also put forward. After realizing that DBSA is both acid catalyst and surfactant, we concluded that it was dual functions of acid catalyst and surfactant that played an important role in improving reaction rate and conversion of etherification.