Preparation and catalytic performance of hydrophobie so 4 2- -TiO 2- clay solid acid catalyst

Abstract

A new solid acid of SO 4 2- -TiO 2- Clay was supported on activated clay, and was applied to the esterification reaction of fatty acid with methanol. The influence of preparation conditions of the supported SO 4 2- -TiO 2- Clay on the talytic performance was studied using the above esterification reaction in a tank reactor. The supported SO 4 2- -TiO 2- hibited high catalytic activity and stability. The optimized conditions were as follows: reaction temperature 70 °C, M methanol :Mfatty acid=0.43:l, catalyst amount of 5% on weight basis of fatty acid, and reaction time of 8 h. The catalytic activity was almost unchanged after twenty reaction recycles. The catalysts were also characterized by XRD, SEM, TGA/DSC, low temperature nitrogen adsorption-desorption and in situ FTIR. The results indicate that SO 4 2- -TiO 2 is finely dispersed on the activated clay and the acidic center is typical of L-acid. These show that the activated clay as support of SO 4 2- -TiO 2 is an efficient hydrophobic solid acid material