Phenol tert-butylation over zirconia-supported 12-molybdophosphoric acid catalyst

The alkylation of phenol with tert-butanol using zirconia-supported 12-molybdophosphoric acid as catalysts gave 80.6% phenol conversion with products' selectivities 2-TBP, 11.5%; 2,4-DTBP, 55.2% and 4-TBP, 25.7% after 2 h under selected reaction conditions.