New mesoporous perovskite ZnTiO3 and its excellent catalytic activity in liquid phase organic transformations

A new mesoporous perovskite ZnTiO3 material has been synthesized by the evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) method using non-ionic surfactant Pluronic P123 as template. After calcination of the dried gel of equimolar concentrations of Zn(II) and Ti(IV) at 673 K, a new perovskite mesophase of ZnTiO3 (MZT-11) formed, having highly crystalline cubic ZnTiO3 pore wall. Interestingly, in the absence of P123 but otherwise identical synthesis conditions showed no cubic structure and a mixed phase consisting of ZnO and TiO2 phases (ZT-11). The BET surface area of the mesoporous perovskite materials (MZT-11) was 136m(2) g(-1) and the average dimension of the pores was ca. 5.1 nm. The material was thoroughly characterized by different analytical methods including small and wide angle powder XRD, FE SEM, TEM, FT IR, UV-visible, photoluminescence (PL) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis. This new mesoporous perovskite material showed excellent catalytic activity in the Friedel-Crafts (FC) benzylation of aromatics and in the Fischer esterification of different long chain carboxylic acids in the presence of methanol under solvent-free conditions. (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.