Calcium oxide-modified mesoporous silica loaded onto ferriferrous oxide core: Magnetically responsive mesoporous solid strong base

Abstract

© 2018 The design of new type of solid strong base with ideal activity, stability, and reusability is strongly urged by the growing demand of green chemistry and sustainable development. In this study, a new type of mesoporous solid strong base, denoted as CaO/mSiO2/Fe3O4, is successfully fabricated by successively coating SiO2 onto Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles and loading CaO into the mesoporous SiO2. Compared with a series of other typical solid bases, the CaO/mSiO2/Fe3O4 exhibits higher activity towards the synthesis of dimethyl carbonate by the transesterification of ethylene carbonate and methanol. The activity of the CaO/mSiO2/Fe3O4 is not observed to decrease obviously even after sextic catalyst recirculation, and in particular, the recovery of the catalyst without quality loss is very convenient due to the good magnetic responsiveness of the Fe3O4 cores.