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Results for “Aldol Condensation”

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DOE OSTI2026

Effect of Strength of Soluble and Solid Acid Catalysts on Selectivity in Aldol Reactions

Aldol reactions can follow the classical condensation path and produce an α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compound and water, however in some cases, aldol chemistry may be steered towards a fission that gives an olefin and a carboxylic acid. This investigation examines how the strength of Brønsted acid sites—both in homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis—controls these two pathways and their kinetics. The cross-aldol reaction between benzaldehyde and 3-pentanone served as test case. Batch reactions, conducted in toluene as solvent at a temperature of 140 °C under autogenous pressure, were analyzed by GC and in situ ATR-FTIR spectroscopy to determine product distributions and rate constants for condensation and fission pathways. A series of soluble acids including a family of sulfonic acids mostly favored the condensation pathway, with formic acid as the weakest in the series by its pKa being inactive for aldol chemistry. Significant amounts of fission products were rare except for the known selectivity of phosphoric acid, and the circumstances were difficult to delineate. For the sulfonic acid family, the logarithm of the first-order condensation rate constants scaled only roughly with pKa (water) values, whereas a good correlation was obtained with calculated deprotonation Gibbs energies in toluene. A series of H-forms of isomorphously substituted beta zeolites, HESiBEA with E = Al, Ga, Fe, or B, favored the fission pathway. Site density and site strength were characterized by calorimetric measurements of the heats of adsorption of isopropylamine, which decreased in the order Al > Ga, Fe > B. The logarithm of the site-normalized first-order fission rate constants scaled roughly with the heats of adsorption and correlated excellently with reported deprotonation energies. In conclusion, acid strength mainly affects activity and can be seen as a pre-requisite for either aldol condensation or fission chemistry, whereas additional, yet to be full clarified catalyst properties and reaction conditions are required to steer aldol chemistry towards fission selectivity.

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DOE OSTI2022

Investigating the impact of micropore volume of aminosilica functionalized SBA-15 on catalytic activity for amine-catalyzed reactions

Mesoporous materials such as SBA-15 are used in many applications since the materials are robust and have tunable properties. Whereas these materials are thought to be ideal, the materials are complex with the common synthesis methods producing materials that contain micropores. This work will investigate the impact of micropores on catalytic activity of aminosilica materials. For comparison, materials are formed using a standard method that produces materials with micropores (REG-SBA-15) and using a modified method that produces materials with negligible micropore volume (NMP-SBA-15). After grafting the calcined support with an aminosilane (either (N-methyl amino propyl) trimethoxy silane (denoted as 2°Am) or (N,N-diethyl-3-amino propyl) trimethoxy silane (3°Am)), catalytic testing experiments reveal that NMP-SBA-15 functionalized materials are more active than REG-SBA-15 functionalized materials for a range of reactions. The reactions include (a) glucose isomerization where amines interacting with surface silanols limit catalytic activity and (b) aldol and Knoevenagel chemistry where amine-silanol interactions increase the reaction rate. For aldol chemistry, the observed difference in rate is further investigated using site quantification experiments. Interestingly, the results reveal that three types of sites exist for each material, including sites that are (1) highly active, (2) intermediate active, and (3) inactive. Additionally, NMR experiments indicate that amines immobilized on REG-SBA-15 supports are less mobile than amines on NMP-SBA-15. For REG-SBA-15, the materials are found to have aminosilanes that have limited mobility and the largest fraction of inactive sites, which suggests that the inactive catalytic sites are in the micropores. Overall, the design of highly active catalytic materials can be achieved using materials that have limited micropore volumes.

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