Jinbei Yang

Noble Metal Decoration and Presulfation on TiO2: Increased Photocatalytic Activity and Efficient Esterification of n-Butanol with Citric Acid

TiO2 has been widely used as a key catalyst in photocatalytic reactions; it also shows good catalytic activity for esterification reactions. Different sulfated M-TiO2 nanoparticles (M = Ag, Au, Rh, and Pt) were prepared by photodeposition and ultrasonic methods. The results show that the noble metal nanoparticles, which were loaded onto a TiO2 surface, slightly affected the crystal phase and particle size of TiO2. Among all the catalysts, /Au-TiO2 exhibited the best catalytic activity in the esterification reaction for the synthesis of citric acid n-butyl acetate and in the decomposition of methyl orange, as confirmed by a high conversion rate of up to 98.2% and 100% degradation rate, respectively. This can be attributed to an increase in the Lewis acidity of the catalyst and increased separation efficiency of electron-hole pairs. This superior catalyst has great potential applications in esterification reactions and wastewater treatments.

Reaction kinetics for synthesis of isopropyl myristate catalyzed by sulfated titania

Sulfated titania (SO42−/TiO2) was prepared and characterized by nitrogen adsorption-desorption, FT-IR, thermostability analyzer, XRD and particle size analyzer. The esterification of myristic acid (MA) with isopropanol (IPOH) catalyzed by the solid super acid SO42−/TiO2 was studied. The effect of reaction kinetics conditions such as temperature, stirrer speed, initial mole ratio of alcohol to acid, and catalyst loading on the conversion of myristic acid was investigated. A second-order pseudo-homogeneous model was developed to calculate the rate of the reaction, and then the kinetic parameters were estimated. The calculated values were in agreement with experimental data.