Sulfated Well-Defined Mesoporous Nanostructured Zirconia for Levulinic Acid Esterification

Overview

Journal ACS Omega

Publisher American Chemical Society

Specialty Chemistry

Date 2022 Aug 22

PMID 35990426

Authors

Salaheddine Lanaya

Yousra El Jemli

Khadija Khallouk

Karima Abdelouahdi

Abdellah Hannioui

Abderrahim Solhy

Abdellatif Barakat

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Well-organized zirconia (ZrO) nanoparticles forming mesoporous materials have been successfully synthesized via a facile micelle-templating method using cetyltrimethylammonium bromide as a structure-directing template to control the nucleation/growth process and porosity. The systematic use of such a surfactant in combination with a microwave-assisted solvothermal (cyclohexane/water) reaction enabled the control of pore size in a narrow-size distribution range (3-17 nm). The effect of solvent mixture ratio on the porosity of the synthesized oxide was determined, and the controlled growth of zirconia nanoparticles was confirmed by means of powder X-ray diffraction, small-angle X-ray scattering, transmission electron microscopy, selected area electron diffraction, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy as well as N physisorption isotherm analysis. Then, the as-prepared nanostructured zirconia oxides were treated with sulfuric acid to have sulfated samples. The catalytic performances of these mesoporous zirconia nanoparticles and their sulfated samples were tested for levulinic acid (LA) esterification by ethanol, with quantitative conversions of LA to ethyl levulinate after 8 h of reaction.

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