Carbon‐SO₃Na Catalysed Synthesis of Glycerol Carbonate via Transesterification of Glycerol and Dimethyl Carbonate

Abstract

Glycerol, a major by-product from biodiesel industry valorized into glycerol carbonate (GC) employing heterogeneous carbonbased sulfated sodium (carbon-SO 3 Na) catalyst derived from glycerol. Investigations have been conducted to study the influence of reaction parameters such as catalyst dosage, DMC/ glycerol molar ratio, reaction temperature and reaction time for the production of GC in high yield with high selectivity from glycerol and dimethyl carbonate (DMC) via transesterification process. Under optimized conditions the maximum GC yield (> 99 %) with 100 % selectivity was observed with catalyst dose of 1.5 wt.% (of glycerol), DMC/glycerol molar ratio of 3 : 1, reaction temperature of 80 °C in 3 h of reaction period. Further, the catalyst was easily recovered from reaction mixture and reused without any pre-treatment. The catalyst maintained its crystalline nature with remarkable performance even after 5 cycles of reaction without any deactivation and leaching. The main advantage of the adopted carbon-SO 3 Na catalyzed protocol for the synthesis of GC is environmentally benign due to its high yield and selectivity under mild reaction conditions. Thus, the carbon-SO 3 Na catalyst has a wide utility as a potential heterogeneous solid base catalyst for several organic transformations.