Liquid phase esterification of acetic acid over WO3 promoted β-SiC in a solvent free system.

A series of tungstate promoted β-SiC catalysts was synthesized by a wetness impregnation method. The as synthesized catalysts were unambiguously characterized by XRD, Raman, FTIR, XPS, UV-Vis DRS, TEM, BET surface areas and FE-SEM, and simultaneously the total amount of the acidity of the catalysts was estimated by NH(3)-TPD. The catalytic activities of the synthesized materials were tested in the liquid phase esterification of acetic acid with n-butanol in a solvent free medium. The reaction parameters were optimized to a temperature of 120 °C, molar ratio of butanol and acetic acid of 1:2 and a reaction time of 6 h after performing a number of experiments. Under the optimum conditions, the catalytic esterification revealed a significant effect of 88% conversion with 100% selectivity to butyl acetate in 20 wt% WO(3)/β-SiC. This is the first report on the effective utilization of β-SiC as a catalyst support for liquid phase esterification of acetic acid.