Abstract
The aldol condensation of citral with acetone catalyzed by a Mg,Al-mixed oxide derived from hydrotalcite with an Al/(Al + Mg) molar ratio equal to 0.2 was studied. The influence of reaction parameters such as acetone/citral molar ratio (1–5), temperature (343–398 K), and reaction time (30–240 min) was evaluated aiming at their optimization to increase pseudoionone production with high selectivity. The best results were obtained for an acetone/citral molar ratio of 5 with 5 wt.% of catalyst (based in the total weight of reactants). The highest pseudoionone selectivity (90%) was achieved at 343 K after 4 h of reaction, with a citral conversion close to 50%. The observed trends suggest that higher conversions and selectivities should be attained at longer reaction times at 343 K. GC–MS analyses confirmed pseudoionone isomers as the main reaction products, the by-products being those from the aldol condensation between pseudoionone and acetone and from the self-condensation of citral. A general reaction scheme is proposed.
Published Version
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