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Several mesoporous substituted silicates were applied to the acetalization of acetone with glycerol to yield solketal.

The team of scientists led by Pablo Pescarmona from KU Leuven, Belgium, illustrate for the first time that mesoporous Lewis acid catalysts can be active for this reaction to produce solketal.  Solketal is a very valuable compound with direct applications as a fuel additive, surfactant and flavouring agent.  Of the catalysts tested, the catalyst which showed the highest conversion and turnover numbers was the novel Hf-TUD-1 material.  Along with two other materials, these catalysts gave superior results compared to a reference solid acid catalyst such as Ultrastable zeolite Y.  The active materials do not suffer from leaching and could be efficiently reused in consecutive catalytic cycles.

This article is free to access until the 12th June 2012!  Click on this link below to find out more…

Highly-efficient conversion of glycerol to solketal over heterogeneous Lewis acid catalysts, Li Li, Tamás I. Korányi, Bert F. Sels and Paolo P. Pescarmona, Green Chem., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2GC16619D

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Selective conversion of trioses to lactates over Lewis acid heterogeneous catalysts, Li Li,  Christophe Stroobants, Kaifeng LinPierre A. Jacobs, Bert F. Sels and Paolo P. Pescarmona, Green Chem., 2011, 13, 1175-1181

Zeolite-catalysed conversion of C₃ sugars to alkyl lactates, Paolo P. Pescarmona, Kris P. F. Janssen, Chloë Delaet, Christophe Stroobants, Kristof Houthoofd, An Philippaerts, Chantal De Jonghe, Johan S. Paul, Pierre A. Jacobs and Bert F. Sels, Green Chem., 2010, 12, 1083-1089

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