Research Article Ultrasonic Synthesis of Al-SBA-15 Nanoporous Catalyst for t- Butylation of Ethylbenzene Azhagapillai Prabhu , 1 Venugopal Sudha, 2 Muthusamy Poomalai Pachamuthu , 3 Balachandran Sundaravel , 4 and Stefano Bellucci 5 1 Department of Chemistry, Khalifa University, P.O. Box 127788, Abu Dhabi, UAE 2 Department of Chemistry, Anna University, Chennai 600 025, India 3 Department of Chemistry, Integrated AI & Sensors Lab, Bannari Amman Institute of Technology, Tamil Nadu-638401, Sathyamangalam, India 4 School of Advanced Sciences-Department of Chemistry, Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education, Tamil Nadu-626 126, Krishnankoil, India 5 INFN-Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Via E. Fermi 54, 00044 Frascati, Italy Correspondence should be addressed to Azhagapillai Prabhu; azhagapillai.prabhu@ku.ac.ae Received 19 November 2021; Revised 28 January 2022; Accepted 3 February 2022; Published 9 March 2022 Academic Editor: Balachandran Jeyadevan Copyright © 2022 Azhagapillai Prabhu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Mesoporous Al-SBA-15 (Si/Al = 25) catalysts were synthesised by the ultrasonic (US) irradiation method at different time durations (1, 3, and 5 h) using the pluronic P123 triblock copolymer as a template. The synthesised catalysts were examined in detail by XRD, ICP-AES, N 2 adsorption-desorption, SEM, TEM, FT-IR, and TGA characterization techniques. The characterization results reveal that the catalysts possess a well-ordered hexagonal mesoporous structure. The catalytic activity of synthesised materials was investigated in the tert-butylation of ethylbenzene at different reaction conditions, and their identified products are para-tert-butylethylbenzene (p-tert-BEB) and meta-tert-butylethylbenzene (m-tert-BEB). It was found that high ethylbenzene conversion (69%) is achieved at 200 ° C with high selectivity towards p-tert-butylethylbenzene (80%). The optimum feed ratio (ethylbenzene: t-butyl alcohol) was 1 : 2, and the feed rate was 2 ml/h for high conversion and product selectivity. All these synthesised Al-SBA-15 (US) catalysts are compared with hydrothermally synthesised Al-SBA-15 (HT) at the same reaction conditions. 1. Introduction Heterogeneous solid acid catalysts with mesoporous struc- tures have been employed in many industrial chemical pro- cesses as eco-friendly nanocatalysts. Given this, many studies on mesoporous solid acid catalysts have been con- ducted [1–4]. Remarkably, many researchers have reported on the synthesis, functionalisation, and catalytic applications of ordered mesoporous materials (OMM) such as MCM-41, MCM-48, SBA-15, SBA-16, and KIT-6 [5–8]. Among meso- porous materials, silica-based catalysts such as SBA-15 are promising in adsorption, bio-sensing, catalysis, and drug delivery applications due to their large specific surface area, narrow pore size distribution, tunable pore size, and hydro- thermal stability [9, 10]. The synthesis condition and degree of silica polymerization played a considerable impact on the pore diameter and hydrothermal stability of SBA-15 [11]. Besides, the thermal ageing process of SBA-15 mainly influ- ences the pore wall and pore sizes [12]. When compared to mesoporous MCM-41 and other silica materials, SBA-15’s thicker walls greatly enhance its thermal and hydrothermal stability [13]. Though SBA-15 has excellent textural param- eters, it cannot be used as such for catalytic applications due to its pure siliceous neutral network. Moreover, in situ inser- tion of heteroatoms into the SBA-15 framework is very dif- ficult due to the highly acidic synthesis condition of SBA- Hindawi Journal of Nanomaterials Volume 2022, Article ID 2512223, 10 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/2512223