Transition Metal Doped Nanocrystalline MgO Catalyzed Green Chemical Synthesis of E-Ethyl Cinnamate Using One Pot Wittig Reaction

Ethyl cinnamate is important chemical produced by industries on commercial scale. Although this is available naturally in number of plants, the cost of extraction and purification is non-affordable on commercial scale. Existing method for syntheses of this chemicals are acid and enzymatic esterification as well as condensation using Na metal and strong bases under homogeneous condition. These methods are limited by low yield, long reaction time and pollution on commercial scale. To circumvent these limitations, it is very important to develop the method for synthesis of ethyl cinnamate under heterogeneous condition using reactive catalytic systems. For this purpose, Cu, Fe, and Mn doped nanocrystalline MgO was synthesized using an alkali leached hydrothermal technique and used as heterogeneous basic catalysts in a one-pot Wittig reaction to produce ethyl cinnamate. XRD, UV-DRS, FT-IR, FESEM, EDS, and XPS techniques are used to characterize the basic catalysts. The catalytic activity of synthesised catalysts was investigated in a one-pot Wittig reaction at room temperature in DMF solvent of benzaldehyde, triphenylphosphine, and ethyl bromoacetate. Under optimised reaction conditions, the Mn doped nanocrystalline MgO catalyst yields 98 percent. Enhancement of surface basicity due to doping of Mn in MgO was ascertained by UV-DRS and XPS study. In this study we observed the synergistic effect of transition metal doping, particle size and morphology on surface basicity enhancement of nanocrystalline MgO in one pot Wittig reaction for green chemical synthesis of ethyl cinnamate.