Calcined sodium nitrate/natural phosphate: an extremely active catalyst for the easy synthesis of chalcones in heterogeneous media

The modification of natural phosphate (NP) with sodium nitrate by calcination produces an extremely efficient basic catalyst for the Claisen-Schmidt condensation. A large variety of chalcones is easily obtained in high yield at room temperature using only a catalytic amount of NaNO3/NP. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.