Friedel-Crafts alkylation using highly polluting homogeneous Lewis and Bronsted acids are ubiquitous in a variety of organic process industries. In many cases, very high conversions and selectivity can be achieved with aluminum chloride as catalyst and nitrobenzene as solvent. Even though, these acids pose several problems such as recovery and reuse of catalyst, poor selectivity, waste generation, and treatment, use of expensive acid-resistant material of construction, process hazards, etc. However, environmental concerns associated with aluminum chloride-nitrobenzene or BF₃-HF has encouraged development of new solid catalyst that can accomplish reactions under milder operating conditions with minimal harm to the environment and not only intensify the rates of reactions but also offer better product selectivity. Zeolites have been utilized for synthesis of fine chemicals involving shape selective catalysis leading to development of many industrial processes. The alkylation of diphenyl oxide with benzyl alcohol was studied over H-ZSM5 zeolite catalyst and it leads to industrially important products such as heat transfer fluids and perfumery compounds.

Keywords : Benzyl Diphenyl Oxide, Zeolites, H-ZSM5