Mesoporous aluminophosphate solid acids for solvent-free acetylation

The acetylation of alcohols, phenols and amines is one of the most useful and versatile transformations in organic synthesis. Among them, the conversion of hydroxyl or amino group into the corresponding acetate or acetamide is essential due to its medicinal value. The growing environmental considerations, development of green processes using heterogeneous catalysts under solvent-free conditions has aroused great interest in recent years. The discovery of a new class of mesoporous amorphous aluminophosphate (AlP) have gained significant interest in organic fine chemical synthesis and their applications as solid acid heterogeneous catalysts supports owing to their flexible textural properties, surface acidity and thermal stability. The acid-base properties of these heterogeneous solid acid catalysts can be modified by incorporation of transition metals to improve the catalytic activity. This method of acetylation also has several advantages such as excellent yields, no side reactions, ease of preparation and handling of the catalyst, cost efficiency and effective reusability of catalyst, use of inexpensive catalyst and simple experimental procedure.