Nonacidic catalytic synthesis of n-butyl cinnamate

Nonacidic catalysts,copper methanesulfonate,were prepared and characterized by TGA and FT-IR. The TGA results indicated that there existed four crystal water molecules in the formula. The copper oxide content determined by TGA was in good agreement with theoretically calculated value. Copper methanesulfonate was used as the catalyst for esterification of cinnamic acid with butanol. The effects of alcohol /acid molar ratio, reaction time and catalyst dosage were investigated. The products were characterized by means of refractive index,elemental analysis and FT-IR. n-Butyl cinnamate yield of over 96% was obtained under the optimum condition as follows:butanol to cinnamic acid molar ratio of 2.0:1.0, catalyst dosage of 0.30% (molar percentage of cinnamic acid),reaction time 120 min, reaction temperature of the same as reflux temperature.The catalyst was reusable after simple phase-separation and could be repeatedly used for 5 times without obvious loss of activity and with n-butyl cinnamate yield of over 90.0%.