Morales, Gabrielvan Grieken, RafaelMartín, AntonioMartínez, Fernando2010-09-242010-09-242010Chemical Engineering Journal 161 (2010) 388-396http://hdl.handle.net/10115/4246Organically-modified mesoporous silica materials have been prepared by direct co-condensation of styrylethyltrimethoxysilane (STETMOS) and tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) in one-pot synthesis. The polimerizable nature of the styryl-containing precursor induces the formation of anchored polystyrene blocks on the silica surface, which are amenable to be functionalized with acid groups via sulfonation. The resultant organosulfonic-modified mesostructured silica materials exhibit hexagonal long-range mesoscopic arrangement with extended surface areas and narrow mean pore size distributions. Upon sulfonation a high number of sulfonic acid sites have been introduced on the silica-anchored polystyrene-type organic moieties, thus providing strong acid sites embedded in a hydrophobic micro-environment. The catalytic performance of these strongly acidic hydrophobic materials has been assessed and compared with commercial catalysts in three different acid-catalyzed reactions. Two of them are acid strength-demanding reactions such as acylation of anisole with acetic anhydride and Fries rearrangement of phenyl acetate. The third one, based on the esterification of oleic acid with n-butanol, is a catalytic test wherein the hydrophobic nature of the catalyst surface plays an essential role. As result of these catalytic tests, the sulfonated polystyrene-modified hybrid materials have been shown as versatile and highly active acid heterogeneous catalysts, especially in hydrophobicity-demanding systems.enAtribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 3.0 Españahttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/Químicainfo:eu-repo/semantics/article10.1016/j.cej.2010.01.035info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess23 Química