3.4. Reusability of the catalyst
To study the heterogeneous nature of the Fe-M-Mor catalyst, the reaction
was stopped when the conversion reached 80% and the catalyst
was removed by filtration. The filtrate continued to run immediately
at the same reaction conditions. It was found that the conversion kept
constant after a reaction time of 1 h, demonstrating that Fe-M-Mor is
a heterogeneous catalyst. Moreover, the reusability of the heterogeneous
catalyst is one of its main advantages. The reusability of the
Fe-M-Mor catalyst has been investigated under the same conditions
without any regeneration between two runs. The reaction was first carried
out under the standard conditions (benzene to benzyl chloride
molar ratio of 15, 343 K) to the complete conversion of benzyl chloride.
Then another quantity of benzyl chloride was introduced into the reaction
mixture leading to the same ratio of benzene to benzyl chloride.
After the completion of the second run, the same procedure was repeated
again. The results indicated that the catalyst could be reused several
times in the benzylation of benzene by benzyl chloride without a significant
change of its catalytic activity (not shown). Such catalytic performance
is of great importance for potential industrial application.