tert-Butylation of phenol catalysed by metal exchanged iron pillared montmorillonites

tert-Butyl phenols present an industrially important class of compounds and are prepared by the reaction between phenol and t-butyl alcohol over cation exchange resins. This homogeneous mechanism involves tedious work up and separation techniques. Several alternatives like zeolites and molecular sieves have been tried. The present work discusses the use of transition metal exchanged pillared montmorillonites as novel catalysts for the vapor phase tert-butylation of phenol. The catalytic activities of the systems depend on the amount of acid sites on the catalyst surface and the disubstituted product selectivities depend on the amount of strong acid sites.