PERANAN KATALIS TiO2/SiO2-MONTMORILLONIT PADA REAKSI KONVERSI SITRONELAL MENJADI ISOPULEGOL

Abstract

Catalytic conversion of citronellal to isopulegol over TiO2/SiO2-montmorillonite catalyst was studied for citronellal isolated from Cymbopogon leaf oil. The role of physico-chemical characteristics of montmorillonite and SiO2-montmorillonit catalyst on total conversion, activity and selectivity to produce isopulegol was studied. Activity test was conducted for citronellal cyclication for 4 hour. The total conversion, catalyst activity and catalyst selectivity to produce isopulegol were evaluated based on product composition obtained by GC-MS analysis. The experimental result showed that TiO2/SiO2-montmorillonite plays role in the increase of total conversion significantly from 87.80% over SiO2-montmorillonit and 85.38% over natural montmorillonite become 95.53%. Total conversion and selectivity of the catalyst to produce isopulegol increase could be related to Lewis acidity of TiO2/SiO2-montmorillonite, and also specific surface area enhancement. However, in the range of 1:1.25 to 1:5.0 catalyst to citronellal mass ratio, there was no influence on total conversion and selectivity to produce isopulegol. This may be caused by dominant influence of Lewis acidity compared to other physico-chemical characteristic of material. Kinetics study of the reaction showed that TiO2 dispersion on SiO2-montmorillonite almost doubles the reaction rate constant with the factor of 1.955.