A novel carbon-based solid acid catalyst with high acidity for the hydration of α-pinene to α-terpineol: Effect of graphite crystallite size and synergistic effect of defects

This work, for the first time, highlights that small-sized graphite crystallite and highly defective carbon-based catalysts can effectively increase the -SO3H density of the catalysts and modulate the surface electronic properties of the catalysts, which further facilitates the alpha-pinene hydration reaction. Hydrothermal phosphoric acid modulation of graphite crystallite size and defects in carbon-based catalysts systematically revealed the correlation between -SO3H density, catalytic activity, graphite crystallite size, and defects in biomass carbon. The characterization results demonstrate that small-size graphite crystallites and high structural defects provide more sp(2) hybridized carbon edges, contributing to the catalyst's increase of -SO3H density. The -SO3H group density of the catalyst increased from 0.89 to 1.20 mmol/g after hydrothermal phosphoric acid treatment. The catalyst has the highest efficiency in the alpha-pinene hydration to alpha-terpineol among the reported catalysts, in which 87.06 % of alpha-pinene was converted and reached a maximum alpha-terpineol selectivity (55.38 %) time only 22 h. Density functional theory calculations show that the lattice defects of graphite crystallites in catalysts lead to the polarization of the electron cloud around the catalyst, which further leads to the reduction of electrostatic resistance between alpha-pinene and the active catalytic sites. The apparent activation energy of hydration by the catalyst is 1.74 times lower than that of conventional biomass carbon-based solid acids. The reduction of graphite crystallite size is considered a critical step in improving the selectivity of alpha-terpineol attributed to the effective reduction of alpha-terpineol adsorbed on the catalyst.