Citral-to-Menthol Transformations in a Continuous Reactor over Ni/Mesoporous Aluminosilicate Extrudates Containing a Sepiolite Clay Binder

One-pot continuous synthesis of menthols from citral was performed over 5 wt % Ni supported on a mesoporous aluminosilicate catalyst with sepiolite as binder at 70 °C selectivity 75% to menthols. Catalyst deactivation time-on-stream resulted in decrease the conversion and expense higher isopulegols. Stereoselectivity isopulegols only slightly changed TOS. A kinetic model capable describing experimental data for transformations menthol mode developed. It based detailed reaction network also comprised both metal acid sites. Numerical fitting confirmed good correspondence between calculations.