Abstract
Tungsten and molybdenum promoted mesoporous metal oxides (ZrO2 and SiO2) were synthesized by inverse micelle method. Some of the as-synthesized bimetallic mesoporous catalysts were further converted to ternary mesoporous catalysts via deposition-precipitation whereby palladium nanoparticles were deposited or introduced in the system. The main objective of this investigation was to alterative hetero-catalyst for the modified homogeneous system of aminolysis of epoxides, acetylation of alcohols, and methoxycarbonylation of phenylacetylene by employing the as-synthesized Lewis acid catalysts. A variety of reactions such as aminolysis of epoxides, acetylation of alcohols and methoxycarbonylation of phenylacetylene were investigated. A total of six catalysts were fully characterized by BET, p-XRD, TPR, TPD, TGA, TEM, SEM, and EDX. Interestingly, the as-synthesized catalysts were active in the investigated reactions, with the promoted ones showing molybdenum promoted catalysts with greater activity than the tungsten. The binary mesoporous metal oxide catalysts were utilized for the aminolysis of epoxides, and the acetylation of alcohols, while the ternary mesoporous metal catalysts were employed in the investigation of methoxycarbonylation reaction. The advantage of these heterogenized systems is that the catalysts possess a higher potential of recyclability.
M.Sc. (Chemistry)