Sulfonated porous organic polymer as a highly efficient catalyst for the synthesis of biodiesel at room temperature

A new functionalized porous organic polymer bearing sulfonic acid groups (PDVTA-SO3H) at the pore surface with high surface area (S-BET =406 m(2) g(-1)) and Bronsted acidity is reported. The material has been synthesized via post-synthetic sulfonation of the porous co-polymer poly-divinylbenzene-co-triallylamine (PDVTA-1) using chlorosulfonic acid as sulfonating agent. A detailed characterization of the -SO3H functionalized porous polymeric material has been carried out using N-2 sorption, FT-IR and UV-vis spectroscopy, HR-TEM, FE-SEM, thermogravimetric and elemental analyses. Temperature programmed desorption of NH3 (TPD-NH3 analysis) of PDVTA-SO3H revealed a very high surface acidity of 2.3 mmol g(-1). Such high acidity of PDVTA-SO3H has been explored to investigate its catalytic efficiency towards eco-friendly production of biodiesel via esterification of long-chain free fatty acids (FFA) to the respective fatty acid monoalkyl esters (FAMEs) at room temperature using methanol as reactant as well as solvent. The sulfonated porous polymer is found to be a very active and reusable solid acid catalyst giving high yields (similar to 92-98%) of various biodiesel compounds under very mild reaction conditions. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.