Friedel-crafts acylation of furan using chromium-exchanged dodecatungstophosphoric acid: effect of support, mechanism and kinetic modelling

The Friedel-Crafts acylation of furan to produce 2-acyl by using acetic anhydride is industrially important but it uses highly polluting liquid acids as catalysts. In this study, supported modified heteropoly were used heterogeneous catalysts in a solventless green process. Metal exchanged dodecatungstophosphoric acid (DTP) was loaded on three different supports, and its effect evaluated. 20% w/w Chromium substituted DTP K-10 clay, SiO2, ZrO2 the incipient wetness impregnation method. Cr0.66-DK10 (dodecatungstophosphoric K10) catalyst found have excellent activity for furan. Under optimized condition, ratio 9.6% which significantly less per prior art gave 88% conversion with 100% selectivity. characterization synthesized done sophisticated techniques, namely, XRD, FT-IR, SEM, TEM, XPS, NH3-TPD, TGA, ICP/OES, BET. Eley-Rideal mechanism fit kinetic data. apparent activation energy 18.03 kcal/mol. robust reusable. reaction clean because no chlorinated chemicals, reagents, solvent, used.