Zinc oxide as a solid acid catalyst for esterification reaction

• Synthesized ZnO is active in n-butanol esterification reaction.
• The activity of ZnO is comparable to that of Hβ zeolite.
• A reaction mechanism is provided from kinetics data.

Zinc oxide and its composites with Hβ zeolite were produced under different synthesis conditions. The synthesized catalysts were evaluated for performance in esterification of n-butanol with acetic acid. BET surface area, XRD, and acidity (using NH3 and pyridine as probe molecules) were measured to correlate the activity with the structural features of the catalysts.