PENGARUH PERLAKUAN TEMPERATUR PADA SINTESIS BENTONIT TERPILAR Al2O3 TERHADAP KARAKTERNYA DAN APLIKASINYA SEBAGAI KATALIS DALAM REAKSI ESTERIFIKASI

The synthesis and characterization of Al2O3 pillared bentonite have been done and catalytic application in esterification reaction were studied. Pillarization conducted using Al13 ion Keggin as pillaring agent. The effect of temperature treatment on the synthesis of Al2O3 pillared bentonite towards its characters were studied by calcinations methods with temperature variation 300, 400, and 500oC for 4 h. In addition, the effect of alcohol on Al2O3 pillared bentonite catalytic activities was measured using different kind of alcohols such as methanol, ethanol, and n-propanol with similar reaction condition. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), N2 gas sorption (BET) analysis methods were employed to characterize the synthesized Al2O3 pillared bentonite, while surface acidity characterization was conducted using pyridine adsorptions and FTIR spectroscopy analysis. The result showed significant improvement on bentonite physicochemical characters that was obtained by pillarization using metal oxide aluminium are basal spacing value 0,26 nm, specific surface area 103,93 m2/g and total pore volume 0,06 mL/g but average pore radius was decreased 2,23 nm. The existence of temperature treatment on the synthesis of Al2O3 pillared bentonite showed that the higher temperature caused the decrease the basal spacing, specific surface area and pore volume of the bentonite. Catalytic activity test showed that the percentage of ethyl acetate produced by Na-bentonite and Al2O3 pillared bentonite were 8.61 and 16.74 %, respectively, eventhough raw bentonite surface acidity was higher than Al2O3 pillared bentonite. These results demonstrated that Al2O3 pillared bentonite catalytic activity was not influenced merely by surface acidity but influenced by surface physicochemical characters i.e specific surface area and total pore volume. The GC analysis data showed that the ester product on using methanol, ethanol, and n-propanol were 9.55, 1.65, and 0.96 %, respectively and 100 % selectivity for all type of alcohols