Abstract
Objectives: The science of chemistry has matured, and green chemistry emphasizes the creative use and design of chemicals. The main objective of this work is to carryout Fisher esterification reactions using silica sulphuric acid ionic liquid in such a way that they have little or no pollution potential or environmental risk and are both economically and technologically feasible. The aim is to prove the catalytic efficiency of silica sulphuric acid ionic liquid as a green chemical. Study design: Fisher esterification reaction using silica-sulphuric acid ionic liquid as a catalyst under solventless condition. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Chemistry, Sir Theagaraya College, Chennai-21, Tamilnadu, India, between July 2009 and September 2010. Methodology: It involves five stages. First stage is the synthesis of silica sulphuric acid ionic liquid in an eco-friendly way by the reaction of silica gel and chlorosulphonic acid .It is interesting to note that the reaction is easy, clean and not requiring any work-up procedure. Second stage is the Fisher esterification reaction of a variety of carboxylic acids and alcohol utilizing silica sulphuric acid. Third stage is the purification of products by chromatographic techniques. The fourth stage id the characterization of all the products by spectral methods. Fifth stage is the comparison of the catalytic efficiency of silica sulphuric acid with the conventional sulphuric acid catalyst. Results: The silica supported sulphuric acid is bench top reagent which is easy to handle with better accessibility of the reactants to the active sites. Fisher esterification reactions were completed with excellent yields (97 - 99%) within 1.5 - 8 hr at the temperature range of 80-135 o C. The reaction does not require any additional catalyst because the ionic liquid itself acts as a catalyst and solvent as well in these experiments, the products were isolated and the remaining catalyst was washed and reloaded with fresh substrates. When Research Article
Highlights
Green chemistry, environmentally benign chemical synthesis, and alternative synthetic pathways for pollution prevention, benign by design: these phrases all essentially describe the same concept (Anastas and Warner, 1998)
The results indicated that the silica sulphuric acid exhibited excellent catalytic activity for the esterification reaction and better yield under mild reaction conditions than those reactions without ionic liquid
We have developed a range of ionic liquids that are inert to air and water and are similar in cost to common organic solvents (Rajendran, 2010)
Summary
Environmentally benign chemical synthesis, and alternative synthetic pathways for pollution prevention, benign by design: these phrases all essentially describe the same concept (Anastas and Warner, 1998). Green chemistry is the utilization of a set of principles that reduces or eliminates the use or generation of hazardous substances in the design, manufacture, and application of chemical products. Green chemistry involves the design of chemical syntheses, and the use of material reagents and processes that prevent pollution. Green chemistry is not necessarily environmental chemistry, it may involve some of this. Pollution is usually defined as chemical pollution. Most often the approach utilized in the laws has been one of controlling the amount of release of a chemical or controlling the final concentration of that chemical in the medium to which it was released
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