Preparation of highly ordered mesoporous AlSBA-15 and its application to isopropylation of m-cresol

Vapor phase alkylation of m-cresol with isopropanol was carried out over large pore AlSBA-15 catalysts with different nSi/nAl ratios. 2-Isopropyl-5-methylphenol (2I-5MP) was obtained as a major product with high selectivity. AlSBA-15 (45) was found to be the most active catalyst in this study. It showed 73.5% m-cresol conversion and a selectivity of 45.68% for 2I-5MP under the optimized reaction conditions. Further, large pore AlSBA-15 (45) catalyst was not deactivated when the reaction was carried out for several hours of reaction time.