Aluminophosphates , chromium

Cr(VI) compounds, like Cr03,414 PDC,415 PCC,416 (OCMe2CH2 CMe20)Cr02417 and a chromium substituted aluminophosphate (CrAPO-5) 418... 

Aluminophosphates (A1P04) were discovered in 198248 and a large amount of research has been directed towards the incorporation of various elements into the framework of these molecular sieves 49 A particular area of study is the oxidation of primary and secondary alcohols to the corresponding carbonyl compounds, which are useful synthetic intermediates. Traditionally, alcohol transformations are performed with stoichiometric chromium(VI) reagents.50 However, due to environmental problems associated with chromium-containing effluent, attention has focused on the use of chromium in conjunction with oxidizing agents such as tert-butyl hydroperoxide.51 Sheldon and co-workers... 

Chromium substituted aluminophosphate-5 is an active and recyclable catalyst for the selective decomposition of cyclohexenyl hydroperoxide to 2-cyclohexen-l-one. The product is of potential industrial interest for the synthesis of caprolactam. 

The synthesis of cyclohexanone, which is an intermediate in the manufacture of nylon 6 and nylon 6,6 is an important industrial process [1], One of the major current routes for the synthesis of cyclohexanone is the liquid-phase autoxidation of cyclohexane at 125-160 °C and 10 bar followed by the selective decomposition of the intermediate cyclohexyl hydroperoxide, using a soluble cobalt catalyst, to a mixture of cyclohexanol and cyclohexanone [2]. These severe conditions are necessary due to the low reactivity of cyclohexane towards autoxidation. Due to the high reactivity of the products in the autoxidation step conversions must be kept low (<10%) [3,4]. Heterogeneous catalysts potentially offer several advantages over their homogeneous counterparts, for example, ease of recovery and recycling and enhanced stability. Recently we found that chromium substituted aluminophosphate-5 and chromium substituted silicalite-1 (CrS-1) are active, selective and recyclable catalysts for the decomposition of cyclohexyl hydroperoxide to cyclohexanone [5j. 

The as-synthesized and calcined CrAPO-5 and CrS-1 were characterized by XRD which showed that the samples were pure and had an API and MFI structure respectively. ICP analysis showed that both catalysts contained about 1 % chromium. The results observed in the decomposition of cyclohexenyl hydroperoxide over several redox active moleular sieves are presented in Table 1. CrAPO-5 and CrS-1 displayed rougly equal activity and selectivity in the decomposition of cyclohexenyl hydroperoxide. Blank reactions carried out with Silicalite-1 (S-1) and silicon incorporated Aluminophosphate-5 (SAPO-5) show low conversions confirming that the chromium was responsible for the catalysis. Other transition- metal subsituted molecular sieves showed low conversions. 

Although there are many differences between chromium oxide catalysts and the organochromium catalysts, when they are bonded to the support, organochromium catalysts usually display a similar, but exaggerated, MW response in the polymer produced relative to what is observed with chromium oxide catalysts. For example, the MW of polymer produced with each type of catalyst usually decreased as the support calcination temperature was raised. Similarly, when both chromium oxide and the organochromium compounds were deposited onto aluminophosphate supports, they always yielded lower-MW polymer as the amount of phosphate in the support was raised. 

Chromium oxide on aluminophosphate produces polymers having a broader MW distribution than its Cr/silica counterparts, which is evidence of greater heterogeneity of Cr species on the catalyst surface. Organochromium compounds on aluminophosphate also produce polymers having broad MW distributions, and with these catalysts these same trends become unusually clear. Perhaps because the chromium tends to bind through only one link to the surface instead of two, it is often possible to obtain more detailed information about the catalyst from the resultant polymer. 

For example, the trimethylsilylmethyl derivative of chromium(II) is well suited to this purpose. Although it produces a highly active catalyst on aluminophosphate or fluoride-treated alumina supports, it is barely active on silica by itself. Nevertheless, when added to silica-supported Cr(II) oxide, the result is a highly active catalyst that produces branched polymer. In addition to reacting with silanol groups, the chromium alkyl may also react with chromium oxide to again produce mono-attached species, such as is shown in Scheme 44. Coordination between one Cr atom and its chromium or oxide neighbor also seems likely. 

Soluble chromium compounds are known to catalyze the allylic oxidation of olefins [22,23] and benzylic oxidations of alkyl aromatics [22,24] using tert-butyl-hydroperoxide as the primary oxidant. Chromium-substituted aluminophosphates, e. g. CrAPO-5, were shown to catalyze the allylic oxidation of a variety of terpene substrates with TBHP to give the corresponding enones [25,26]. For example, a-pinene afforded verbenone with 77% selectivity (Eq. 6) and 13% of the corresponding alcohol. 

Other Solid-add Catalysts - Chromium on an aluminophosphate support, which is supposed to be a polymerization catalyst, was used in the oligomerization of light olefins and ethylene. For ethylene oligomerization, the catalyst exhibited activity for dimerization, with around 60% conversion to C4 fractions. In another patent the support and the active phase were the same as in the previous patent, except that the support had been treated with a solution of triethylaluminium in toluene before being contacted with the chromium compound. The catalyst system showed selectivity towards trimerization. When... 

In the as-synthesized CrAPO-5, the chromium(III) is octahedrally coordinated within the framework (four framework oxygen atoms and two water molecules are in the Ciflll) coordination sphere). During calcination, oxidation of chromium(III) to chromiumCVI) occurs leading to the formation of diox-ochromium(VI), which is still bonded to the internal aluminophosphate lattice. The acidic P-OH groups derived from the decomposition of template balance the charges (216). 

Chromium(VI) catalyzes the oxidation of alcohols with alkyl hydroperoxides . Chromium-incorporated molecular sieves, in particular chromium-substituted aluminophosphate-5 (Cr-APO-5) were shown to be effective for the aerobic oxidation of secondary alcohols to the corresponding ketones (Reaction 19). This, and related catalysts, were first believed to be heterogeneous but more detailed investigations revealed that the observed catalysis is due to small amounts of soluble chromium that are leached from the framework by reaction with hydroperoxides. Reaction 19 may involve initial chromium-catalyzed free radical autoxidation of the alcohol to the a-hydroxyalkyl hydroperoxide followed by chromium-catalyzed oxygen transfer with the latter and/or H202 (formed by its dissociation) via an oxochromium(VI)-chromium(IV) cycle. 

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