High activity of iron containing metal–organic-framework in acylation of p-xylene with benzoyl chloride

Catalytic behavior of metal–organic-frameworks (MOFs) Cu3(BTC)2, MIL-100(Fe) and MIL-100(Cr) was investigated in p-xylene acylation with benzoyl chloride and compared with the behavior of large pore zeolites Beta and USY. It has been clearly shown that MIL-100(Fe) exhibit much higher conversion of benzoyl chloride with excellent selectivity in p-xylene acylation. The performance of MIL-100(Fe) catalyst was favorable with those of other conventional heterogeneous catalysts like zeolites. Conversion of benzoyl chloride equal to 100% was achieved over MIL-100(Fe) with 20–30 min under optimized reaction conditions. It is assumed that unsaturated Lewis acid sites associated with the presence of Fe exhibit optimum acid strength for catalyzing this acylation reaction.