Tertiary amino group covalently bonded to MCM-41 silica as heterogeneous catalyst for the continuous synthesis of dimethyl carbonate from methanol and ethylene carbonate

A tertiary amino group was covalently bonded to the silica surface of mesoporous MCM-41 molecular sieve. The resulting anchored complex was characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), nitrogen adsorption and FT-IR spectroscopy, and was used as catalyst for the transesterification of ethylene carbonate and methanol to produce dimethyl carbonate. The catalyst exhibits excellent stability as well as good catalytic activity in the reaction conditions, and was subjected to utilization for 100h without obvious loss of activity. Published by Elsevier B.V.