Mesoporous sodalite: A novel, stable solid catalyst for base-catalyzed organic transformations

Abstract

Mesoporous socialite with a mesoporous/microporous hierarchical structure was successfully synthesized using an organosilane surfactant. It showed about 10-fold high surface area and 4-fold large pore volume, as compared with sodalite with solely microporous structure. The basicity of MPSOD was higher than that of CsNaX or KAIMCM-41. The catalytic activities of this mesoporous zeolite were evaluated for various base catalyzed reactions involving bulky and small substrates, viz. Knoevenagel condensation, Claisen-Schmidt condensation in liquid phase, and acetonylacetone cyclization in vapor phase. The catalyst showed higher activity and longer lifetime than CsNaX and KAIMCM-41. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.