An investigation of Knoevenagel condensation reaction in microreactors using a new zeolite catalyst Original Research Article

New basic zeolite catalysts obtained by grafting amino groups onto NaX and CsNaX zeolites exhibit excellent catalytic activities for Knoevenagel condensation reaction between benzaldehyde and ethyl cyanoacetate (ECA), ethyl acetoacetate (EAA) and diethyl malonate (DEM). The CsNaX-NH2 catalyst also displays higher conversion compared to aminopropylated MCM-41. Knoevenagel condensation reaction in a CsNaX zeolite microreactor performed better than the traditional packed bed reactor (PBR) with an order of magnitude higher productivity (i.e. moles ethyl 2-cyano-3 phenylacrylate produced per hour for each gram catalyst). A nearly fourfold increase in reaction conversion was obtained for the microreactor when CsNaX-NH2 catalyst was used. A membrane microreactor was obtained by incorporating a water-selective, NaA membrane to the multi-channel microreactor. The selective removal of water byproduct during the reaction led to a 25% improvement in reaction conversion for both catalysts.