Synthesis of butyl benzoate by microwave irradiation and phase transfer catalysis

n-Butyl benzoate was synthesized with sodium benzoate and n-butyl bromide as starting materials through nucleophilic substitution reaction in the presence of catalyst of tetrabutyl ammonium bromide under microwave irradiation.Effects of the microwave irradiation power,reaction time,mole ratio of the starting materials and catalyst dosage etc on esterify reaction conversion were discussed.The results demonstrated that with microwave power of 280 W for 55 min when the mole ratio of the sodium benzoate,n-butyl bromide and tetrabutyl ammonium bromide is 1.0∶3.0∶0.3,the yield of n-butyl benzoate reaches 93.4 %.