In this project performance of synthesized CMK-8-SO3H and CMK-8/Pr-SO3H acidic sulfonated mesoporous carbon catalysts in esterification reaction of levulinic acid with n-butanol have been investigated. FT-IR, FE-SEM, TEM, XRD, nitrogen absorption-desorption, TGA, SEM-EDX-Elemental mapping, and CHNS were used for characterization of catalysts. The results demonstrated that ordered mesoporous structures of catalysts, well formed and have been preserved after functionalization, also specific surface area of catalysts 345, 140 and 172 m2/g was found for CMK-8, CMK/Pr-SO3H and CMK-8-SO3H, respectively. These obtained catalysts were used for esterification reaction of levulinic acid to butyl levulinate. Optimal reaction conditions such as reaction time, acid to alcohol ratio, temperature and the weight of catalyst have been designed with Taguchi method. Optimal conditions for n-butyl levulinate synthesis has been estimated to be 130 °C, 10 hours, with 0.015 g of catalyst and 1:10 ratio of acid to alcohol. Under optimum reaction conditions yield of butyl levulinate and conversion of levulinic acid were obtained 75 and 95 %, respectively. To investigate the stability of the optimized catalyst, the catalyst was recycled, and after 3 runs, the yield of the CMK-8-SO3H reduced from 75 to 73 %.
