Ionic Liquid Modified Macropore Resin AB-8 as an Efficient Catalyst for Biodiesel Production

• Published in: Catalysis letters 2024-08, Vol.154 (8), p.4873-4884
• Main Authors: Xiang, Xiaoyan, Liao, Xu, Yan, Qijiang, Yuan, Qiulan, Zhou, Long, Zhang, Ruiming, Lin, Jinqing, Lin, Xihuang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Catalysis; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Industrial Chemistry/Chemical Engineering; Organometallic Chemistry; Physical Chemistry
• ISSN: 1011-372X; 1572-879X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10562-024-04653-7

In this paper, porous Brønsted acidic ionic liquid modified catalyst ILs-AB-8 was successfully synthesized by using 3 steps of Friedel–Crafts hyper-crosslinking synchronous chloromethylation, imidazlole grafting and sulfonic functionalization using macroporous polystyrene AB-8 resin as a raw material. The porous ionic liquid immobilized catalyst ILs-AB-8 exhibits a hierarchical pore structure by the coexistence of abundant macropore, mesopore, and micropore. The catalyst IL 2 -AB-8 with dual Brønsted acid sites(-SO 3 H acid site and p-methylbenzenesulfonic acid site), large surface area (327.19 m 2 /g), high ionic liquid loading amount (IEC 2.03 mmol/g) displayed excellent catalytic activity, with methyl oleate yield up to 95.65% at 338 K in 100 min. The enhanced catalytic performance of IL 2 -AB-8 can be ascribed to the novel Friedel–Crafts hyper-crosslinking process in conjunction with chloromethylation, coupled with th in situ generated activating chloromethyl group incorporated onto the surface of the AB-8 carrier. The hyper-crosslinking approach also effectively transforms the macroporous AB-8 carrier into a multi-level pore structure. This work highlights that IL 2 -AB-8 with high specific surface area, ionic liquid loading content, and strong covalent connection with carrier was coordinated to provide an efficient metal-free heterogeneous catalyst for biodiesel production. Graphical Abstract