Novel Brønsted-acidic ionic liquids based on benzothiazolium cations as catalysts for esterification reactions

Abstract

Three novel Br?nsted-acidic ionic liquids based on benzothiazolium cations were prepared, which served as catalysts for the synthesis of benzoic esters. All three gave good yields of the target esters in esterification reactions. Moreover, they combine the advantages of both homogeneous and heterogeneous solid catalysts in esterification reactions, which enabled them to serve as homogeneous catalysts to catalyze the reactions and be conveniently recovered by simple filtration after the reactions. They could be reused several times without noticeable decrease in efficiency.