Esterification of Dicyclopentadiene with Carboxylic Acids

The use of Nafion/silica composite and zeolite catalysts in this kind of reaction has been studied. The comparison of zeolites with these new materials seems interesting because excellent catalytic performance of such ion exchange resins in several reactions were found.This new material can be considered as nanosized Nafion particles entrapped within a porous silica matrix. Thus the surface area of the dispersed Nafion in the composite is much larger than that of the 

These composites containing different amounts of Nafion catalyst are compared with the original material and with Amberlyst A 15, a well-known macroreticular ion-exchange resin, which achieves remarkable results in several acid-catalysed reactions.  

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