1
214
Preparation, Characterisation and Evaluation of Brazilian Clay-Based Catalysts
J. Braz. Chem. Soc.
achieved by VLa because the NH -TPD analyses and the
Acknowledgments
3
thermodesorption of n-butylamine results did not indicate
a substantial difference in acidity between these catalysts.
As with the esterifications with methanol, hexyl
benzoate and cyclohexyl benzoate were obtained in limited
quantities, even when using the acid-activated clays.
The natural clays performed better in the formation of
hexyl esters than cyclohexyl esters. The low conversion
rates for cyclohexyl esters could be attributed to steric
effects induced by the catalyst. Relative to primary alcohols,
it is more difficult for a secondary cyclic alcohol to access
the mesoporous system of a smectite.
The authors thank CAPES and CNPq (Brazil) for
financial support and research fellowships. The authors
also wish to thank Bentonisa-Bentonita do Nordeste S.A.
for providing the natural clay samples.
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Supplementary Information
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Supplementaryinformation(FiguresS1-S16,TableS1-S2)
is available free of charge at http://jbcs.sbq.org.br as a
PDF file.
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