The Effect of Type of Acid Sites in Molecular Sieves on Activity and Selectivity in Acylation Reactions

Abstract

The role of the type of acid site (Broensted vs. Lewis) on the activity and selectivity of molecular sieve catalysts was investigated in ferrocene and toluene acylation. H-, Zn-, Fe-, Al- and La-forms of zeolite Beta, USY and mesoporous molecular sieves (Al)MCM-41, (Al)SBA-15 were tested. It was observed that addition of metal cations acting as Lewis acid sites can increase the acidity of various molecular sieve catalysts. No general relationship between the type of cation and conversion of individual substrate was found. While the highest activity in ferrocene acylation was observed after addition of Zn, in the case of toluene acylation Al-forms of catalysts were the most active. The results indicate that the acid strength of cationic Lewis sites controls their activity in acylation reactions.