The inevitably low value of glycerol has led to extensive investigations on glycerol conversion to value-added derivatives. The esterification of glycerol with oleic acid is currently a very important industrial process. In this work, a novel heterogeneous acid catalyst featuring hydrophobic surface is developed on modified ZrO₂–SiO₂ support as water-tolerant solid acid catalyst is vital for biphasic esterification reactions that produce water. The novel ZrO₂–SiO₂–Me&Et-PhSO₃H catalyst was prepared through silication and surface modification with trimethoxymethylsilane and 2-(4-chlorosulfonylphenyl)ethyltrimethoxysilane. This work showed that it is possible to control the acidity and hydrophobicity of the catalyst by tailoring the amount of surface modification agents. It was found that the hydrophobicity of the catalyst decreased as its acidity increased. Furthermore, at constant catalyst acidity, the more hydrophobic catalyst showed a better yield.

中文翻译：

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新型基于疏水性ZrO ₂ -SiO ₂的酸催化剂对甘油与油酸催化酯化反应的研究

甘油的不可避免的低价值导致人们对甘油向增值衍生物的转化进行了广泛的研究。甘油与油酸的酯化目前是非常重要的工业过程。在这项工作中，在改性的ZrO ₂ -SiO ₂载体上开发了具有疏水表面的新型多相酸催化剂，因为耐水固体酸催化剂对于产生水的双相酯化反应至关重要。新型ZrO ₂ –SiO ₂ –Me＆Et-PhSO ₃通过硅化和用三甲氧基甲基硅烷和2-（4-氯磺酰基苯基）乙基三甲氧基硅烷进行表面改性来制备H催化剂。该工作表明，可以通过调整表面改性剂的量来控制催化剂的酸度和疏水性。发现催化剂的疏水性随着其酸度的增加而降低。此外，在恒定的催化剂酸度下，疏水性更高的催化剂显示出更好的产率。