High activity of iron containing metal-organic-framework in acylation of p-xylene with benzoyl chloride

Catalytic behavior of metal-organic-frameworks (MOFs) Cu-3(BTC)(2), MIL-100(Fe) and MIL-100(Cr) was investigated in p-xylene acylation with benzoyl chloride and compared with the behavior of large pore zeolites Beta and USY. It has been clearly shown that MIL-100(Fe) exhibit much higher conversion of benzoyl chloride with excellent selectivity in p-xylene acylation. The performance of MIL-100(Fe) catalyst was favorable with those of other conventional heterogeneous catalysts like zeolites. Conversion of benzoyl chloride equal to 100% was achieved over MIL-100(Fe) with 20-30 min under optimized reaction conditions. It is assumed that unsaturated Lewis acid sites associated with the presence of Fe exhibit optimum acid strength for catalyzing this acylation reaction. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.