Mesoporous sodalite: A novel, stable solid catalyst for base-catalyzed organic transformations

Mesoporous sodalite with a mesoporous/microporous hierarchical structure was successfully synthesized using an organosilane surfactant. It showed about 10-fold high surface area and 4-fold large pore volume, as compared with sodalite with solely microporous structure. The basicity of MPSOD was higher than that of CsNaX or KAlMCM-41. The catalytic activities of this mesoporous zeolite were evaluated for various base catalyzed reactions involving bulky and small substrates, viz. Knoevenagel condensation, Claisen–Schmidt condensation in liquid phase, and acetonylacetone cyclization in vapor phase. The catalyst showed higher activity and longer lifetime than CsNaX and KAlMCM-41.