Benzylation of aromatics on tin-containing mesoporous materials Original Research Articlev

The benzylation of benzene and substituted benzenes reaction employing benzyl chloride as the alkylating agent over a series of tin-containing mesoporous silicas with different Sn contents has been investigated. These materials (Sn-HMS-n) have been characterized by elemental analysis, DRX method, N2 adsorption Measurements (BET and BJH theory), XPS, UV–vis, FTIR and Mössbauer spectroscopic methods. The mesoporous tin-containing materials showed both high activity and high selectivity for benzylation of benzene. The activity of these catalysts for the benzylation of different aromatic compounds is in the following order: benzene > toluene > p-xylene > anisole. More interesting is the observation that this catalyst is always active and selective for large molecules like naphthenic compounds such as methoxynaphthalene and he can also be reused in the benzylation of benzene for several times. Kinetics of the benzene benzylation over these catalysts has also been investigated.