Efficiently nucleophilic trifluoromethylation of aldehydes over MgSO4/ZrO2 catalyst

Trifluoromethylation is an important route to achieve the organic fluorinated compounds. In the present work, heterogeneous catalyst of MgSO4/ZrO2 with Lewis base and acid was designed and prepared for the heterogeneous catalytic trifluoromethylation of aldehydes with (trifluoromethyl)trimethylsilane to the α-(trifluoromethyl)benzyl alcohol. The prepared catalyst was characterized to reveal its structure by XRD, FT-IR, Py-FTIR, Raman, XPS, NH3-TPD, CO2-TPD, and TGA. The heterogenous catalyst showed good catalytic performances with 99 % yield of α-(trifluoromethyl) benzyl alcohol at room temperature. The active sites on the surface of MgSO4/ZrO2 were investigated by the adsorption/reaction heat with the microcalorimeter. The reaction mechanism was proposed. The heterogenous catalyst possessed good stability for the entitled reaction. In addition, it showed good universality for the trifluoromethylation of various benzaldehyde derivatives to the corresponding α-(trifluoromethyl) benzyl alcohol.