Síntesi i caracterització de materials bàsics i la seva aplicació en reaccions d'interés industrial

Abstract

The research about the use of new solid Brønsted-type basic catalysts has been the focus of many recent studies because of their potential for aldol condensation reactions. Besides, these solid materials avoid the industrially use of KOH and NaOH reducing several problems such as waste production, corrosion and not recovery of the catalysts. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in layered double hydroxides (LDH) or hydrotalcite-like compounds to perform numerous catalytic reactions and other applications. In order to provide solid Brønstedtype basic catalysts, a thermally treated Mg-Al LDH can be reconstructed due to its known memory effect, by rehydration in contact with water vapour or immersed in liquid water under decarbonated atmosphere. The catalytic performance of a reconstructed Mg-Al LDH in relation to the rehydration procedure applied is not well understood. In this work, careful studies of rehydration procedures (gas or liquid phase) over decomposed Mg-Al LDH have been performed. Since the rehydration process leads to a meixnerite-like material, having Brønsted basic sites in the interlayer space, it is shown that accessibility towards these basic sites is a key factor determining the performance of the catalysts in aldol condensation reactions. The sensitivity of gas-phase reconstructed Mg-Al LDH to the addition of alkaline promoters has been also studied to assess their influence on the catalytic performance. The research described in this thesis has focussed on getting more insight in the activation/rehydration procedure and consequently, in the final morphology of hydrotalcite-like compounds. The basic properties have been characterised by several techniques such as temperature programmed des orption of different probe molecules and by illustrative test reactions such as the liquid-phase aldol condensation between citral-ketones. Another interesting alternative is the use of ionic liquids, which have attracted a large attention as solvents in recent years, due to their physical and chemical properties. Besides, the use of ionic liquids with basic properties could provide efficient catalysts for several condensation reactions. In this area, we also report the use of a supported ionic liquid (choline hydroxide), its catalytic performance in aldol condensation reactions and the characterisation of basic properties.