Dealuminated montmorillonite, prepared by p‐toluenesulphonic acid (pTSA) treatment, was found to be an efficient catalyst in the liquid phase alkylation of p‐cresol (PC) with tert‐butyl alcohol (TBA) in the synthesis of 2‐tert‐butyl p‐cresol (2‐TBC). Comparative studies revealed that catalytic activity of montmorillonite clay sample treated with 0.5 M pTSA (D3‐MMT) was superior to aluminium exchanged montmorillonite (Ex‐MMT) and zeolites (beta and HZSM‐5) during alkylation reaction under microwave irradiation. Thermogravimetric analysis (TG‐DTG) showed that the deactivation of zeolites was mainly due to coke formation. Correlation studies were made for D3‐MMT catalyst between volume accessibility factor (VAF) and PC conversion. These studies suggested that mesopores and types of acidities (Brønsted, Lewis and combination of both) generated after pTSA treatment were found to play role supplementing each other in enhancing the PC conversion. The regenerated catalyst recovered from the reaction mixture under microwave heating retained its catalytic activity after three cycles under optimized conditions.

中文翻译：

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粘土基固体酸催化剂用于对甲酚与叔丁基醇的烷基化

脱铝蒙脱土，通过制备p甲苯磺酸（PTSA）的治疗，被认为是在液相烷基化的有效催化剂p甲酚（PC）与叔在2的合成叔丁基醇（TBA）-叔-丁基p甲酚（2-TBC）。对比研究表明，在微波辐射下的烷基化反应中，用0.5 M pTSA（D3-MMT）处理的蒙脱石粘土样品的催化活性优于铝交换蒙脱石（Ex-MMT）和沸石（β和HZSM-5）。热重分析（TG-DTG）表明，沸石的失活主要是由于焦炭的形成。对D3-MMT催化剂在体积可及系数（VAF）和PC转化率之间进行了相关性研究。这些研究表明，pTSA处理后产生的中孔和酸性类型（Brønsted，Lewis以及两者的组合）被发现在增强PC转化方面相互补充。