ENHANCE DECARBOXYLATION REACTION OF CARBOXYLIC-ACIDS IN CLAY-MINERALS

Clay minerals are important constituents of the Earth's crust. These minerals catalyze reactions in several ways: by energy transfer processes, redox reactions, stabilization of intermediates and by Bronsted or Lewis acidity behavior. Important set of organic reactions can be improved in the precedence of clay minerals. Besides the properties of clays to catalyze chemical reactions, it is possible to enhance some of its reactions by using ionizing radiation. The phenomenon of radiation-induced catalysis may be connected with ionizing process in the solid and with the trapped non-equilibrium charge carriers. In this paper we are reporting the decarboxylation reaction of carboxylic acids catalyzed by clay and by irradiation of the system acid-clay. We studied the behaviour of several carboxylic acids and analyzed them by gas chromatography, X ray and infrared spectroscopy. The results showed that decarboxylation of the target compound is the dominating pathway. The reaction is enhance by gamma radiation in several orders of magnitude.