Neryl acetate synthesis from nerol esterification with acetic anhydride by heterogeneous catalysis using ion exchange resin

Abstract This work aims to synthesize neryl acetate from the nerol esterification reaction with acetic anhydride through heterogeneous catalysis using the ion exchange resin Lewatit® GF 101. The reaction was monitored by gas chromatography and the neryl acetate chemical structure was confirmed by mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The variables effect on the neryl acetate synthesis was evaluated from an experimental design analysis. The reaction showed the highest combined values for nerol conversion (98.11%) and neryl acetate selectivity (86.10%) at 30 min within optimal experimental conditions of temperature at 40 °C, catalyst content at 7% wt, molar ratio at 1:4 (nerol: acetic anhydride), agitation speed at 250 rpm and nerol content at 3 mmol. The complete nerol conversion was achieved at 40 min with 82.34% selectivity. The reaction rate was controlled only by the nerol decay, an expected behavior due to the excess of acetic anhydride used. In addition, the value obtained for the main reaction kinetic constant found by a pseudo-homogeneous model was 6 times greater than that of the parallel reaction. The catalyst reuse was investigated and after 3 cycles a high conversion (96.68%) and selectivity (83.78%) were observed indicating a low loss of the catalytic activity.