ABSTRACT
Arran S. Canning, S. David Jackson, Eilidh McLeod, and Elaine M. Vass
Department of Chemistry, The University, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland Abstract The solid base catalysed aldol condensation of acetone was performed over a CsOH/SiO2 catalyst using a H2 carrier gas. The products observed were diacetone alcohol, mesityl oxide, phorone, iso-phorone and the hydrogenated product, methyl isobutyl ketone. Deuterium tracer experiments were performed to gain an insight into the reaction mechanism. A mechanism is proposed. Introduction
The aldol condensation reactions of aldehydes and ketones are commonly used in organic synthesis reactions for preparing chemicals containing a double bond conjugated with a carbonyl group. Industrially this process is carried out in the liquid phase with homogeneous alkaline bases. However, solid base catalysts are becoming more interesting due to several advantages that they offer. Solid base catalysts allow the condensation reactions to occur in the vapour phase, without the production of large basic waste streams. As well as this heterogeneous base catalysis allows an easier separation of catalyst from products compared to homogenous base catalytic system (1,2).
