Clinoptilolite as a natural, active zeolite catalyst for the chemical transformations of geraniol

Abstract

This work presented the studies with the natural zeolite—clinoptilolite as the catalyst for the isomerization of geraniol. During the research, it turned out that the studied process is much more complicated, and not only isomerization takes place in it, but also dehydration, oxidation, dimerization, cyclization and fragmentation of the carbon chain. Geraniol is an organic raw material which can be obtained not only by a chemical synthesis but also from plants (renewable biomass) by distillation or extraction method, for example a source of geraniol can be a plant—geranium. Before catalytic tests clinoptilolite was characterized by the instrumental methods, such as: XRD, porosity studies—nitrogen adsorption at 77 K, SEM, EDXRF, and FT-IR. Gas chromatography analyses showed that the main products of geraniol isomerization process were 6,11-dimethyl-2,6,10-dodecatrien-1-ol and thumbergol. The selectivity of 6,11-dimethyl-2,6,10-dodecatrien-1-ol and thumbergol depended on the temperature, catalyst content and reaction time. These parameters were changed in the following ranges: 80–150 °C (temperature), 5–15 wt% (catalyst content) and 15–1440 min. (reaction time). The most favorable conditions for 6,11-dimethyl-2,6,10-dodecatrien-1-ol and thumbergol obtaining were: temperature 140 ºC, catalyst content 12.5 wt% and reaction time 180 min. At these conditions, the conversion of geraniol amounted to 98 mol%, and the selectivities of 6,11-dimethyl-2,6,10-dodecatrien-1-ol and thumbergol amounted to 14 and 47 mol%, respectively.