Acetalisation of glycerol with acetone over zirconia and promoted zirconia catalysts under mild reaction conditions

Acetalisation of biomass derived glycerol was performed with acetone over zirconia and promoted zirconia catalysts to synthesize solketal. The catalytic experiments were carried out at room temperature. It was observed that the promoted zirconia catalysts exhibit promising catalytic activity. The activity increased in the order of ZrO2 < WOx/ZrO2 < MoOx/ZrO2 < SO42−/ZrO2. All catalysts exhibited an excellent selectivity of ∼97% towards solketal. The effect of different parameters, such as molar ratio of acetone to glycerol, catalyst wt.% and time-on-stream was studied over zirconia and promoted zirconia catalysts. The synthesized catalysts were characterized by XRD, BET surface area, ammonia-TPD and FT-Raman techniques. Characterization results revealed that the addition of promoters strongly influences the surface acidity of ZrO2 and enhances the tetragonal zirconia phase.