Greener synthesis of butylene carbonate via CO2 utilisation using graphene-inorganic nanocomposite catalysts

The synthesis of butylene carbonate (BC) through the reaction of butylene oxide (BO) and carbon dioxide has been investigated using highly efficient graphene-inorganic heterogeneous catalyst, lathana-cerium-zirconia and graphene oxide represented as La– Ce–Zr–GO nanocomposite. The catalysts have been extensively characterised using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area measurement powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) using Box-Behnken Design (BBD) has been applied to optimise the single and interactive effect of four independent reaction variables, i.e. temperature, pressure, catalyst loading and time, on the conversion of BO and BC yield. Two quadratic regression models have been developed representing an empirical relationship between each reaction response and all the independent variables. The predicted models have been validated statistically and experimentally, where the high agreement was observed between predicted and experimental results with approximate relative errors of ±1.5% for both the conversion BO and the yield of BC.