Ion exchange resins as catalyst for the isomerization of α-pinene to camphene

Camphene is an industrial intermediate compound for commercial chemicals such as isoborneol, isobornyl acetate and camphor. Industrially, the conventional process for camphene production consists of the isomerization of α-pinene using acidic TiO2 as catalyst. The use of this catalyst presents problems such as considerable time for preparation, reproducibility and recovery of catalyst from products after the α-pinene isomerization. For the first time, a commercial exchange resin was used as catalyst for this reaction. Based on the concentration of product as a function of the reaction time, the path of the α-pinene transformation to camphene and byproducts is proposed. Temperature and α-pinene/catalyst ratio were studied in order to optimize the yield to camphene production. The obtained results were comparable with those reported for acidic TiO2.