Highly active and reusable ternary oxide catalyst for dialkyl carbonates synthesis

•Dialkyl carbonates via transesterification of cyclic carbonate with alcohol.•Rare-earth-Mg–Al ternary oxides exhibit high activity and 100% selectivity.•Highly active catalysts even at ambient conditions.•Yield of dialkyl carbonate correlates with the density of basic sites.•Reusable catalyst.

The application of ternary oxides, prepared through calcination of rare-earth modified Mg/Al-hydrotalcite (HT), as highly active, selective, and reusable solid catalysts for dialkyl carbonates synthesis by transesterification reaction is reported. Dimethyl carbonate, for example, was prepared by reacting ethylene carbonate with methanol in 100 mol% selectivity at a yield of 95 mol%. Among several rare-earth modified precursors, La (10 mol%)-HT showed the highest activity. This catalyst was active even at ambient conditions. Basicity of the catalyst played crucial role on its performance. The activity of these catalysts was superior to the hitherto known solid catalysts for this reaction.

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