Direct synthesis of novel FeSBA-1 cubic mesoporous catalyst and its high activity in the tert-butylation of phenol

A technique used for incorporating Fe into a mesoporous molecular sieve with a three-dimensional cubic structure (SBA-1) by simply adjusting the molar hydrochloric acid to silicon ratio in the synthesis gel was described. The catalytic activity of the catalyst was investigated in the vapor phase tert-butylation of phenol reaction. It was found that FeSBA-1(36) was more active than systems such as FeAlMCM-41 or sulfated zirconia. The observed phenol conversion was also found to be significantly higher as compared to other mono-and bimetallic substituted uni-dimensional MCM-41 molecular sieves under optimized reaction conditions