surfactant-like brønsted acidic ionic liquid as an efficient catalyst for selective mannich reaction and biodiesel production in water

The current study deals with the applications of a surfactant-like brønsted acidic ionic liquid (il) 1-dodecyl-3-methylimidazolium hydrogen sulfate ([dmim]hso4) for mannich reaction at room temperature. the reaction was efficiently preceded in water as solvent without using any harmful and expensive organic additives. our findings showed that the reaction is selective for cyclohexanone and no mannich product was observed when cyclopentanone was used as starting material. density functional theory (dft) calculations were performed to provide an evidence about the nature of reactivity of the cyclohexanone/cyclopentanone. the activity of the catalyst was also tested for biodiesel production of fatty acids with methanol and ethanol at mild thermal condition without applying additional water removal steps such as using additives or performing special methodologies like azeotropic distillation. in both reactions, the il can be recycled and reused several times with relatively constant efficiency.