Eco-environmental synthesis of vinyl benzoate through transesterification catalyzed by Pd/C catalyst

Abstract

The synthesis of vinyl benzoate via transesterification of vinyl acetate with benzoic acid was investigated by a carbon-supported palladium catalyst. The results showed that Pd (5 wt %)/C catalyst presented good catalytic and reusable performance instead of mercuric salts of strong acids. The conditions of the transesterification reaction for achieving high yields of vinyl benzoate were explored. The optimized conditions are as follows: reaction temperature, 80 o C, reaction time, 10 h, catalyst dosage, 4.0 wt % of reactants, and benzoic acid/vinyl acetate molar ratio, 1:11, respectively, and the yield of vinyl benzoate was 85.7% with the purity of 98.3%. Meanwhile, the prepared Pd/C catalyst could be recycled five times without significant decrease in activity after separating from the product mixture, and the vinyl benzoate yield is still more than 81%. Furthermore, the eco-environmental synthetic method offers great potential for the industrial scale synthesis of vinyl benzoate. KEY WORDS : Vinyl benzoate, Transesterification, Vinyl acetate, Pd/C catalyst Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2018 , 32(2), 351-359. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v32i2.13