Aluminum complexes industrial applications

Due to their thermodynamic properties some complex aluminum hydrides are not reversible under acceptable technical conditions. Others have too low hydrogen storage capacities which exclude these materials from broad industrial applications. 

The overall interest in these materials arises with the background of the electrochemistry of metals where it can be taken for granted that the electronic conductivity will be large. However, there are some intrinsic disadvantages when dealing with metals in electrochemistry. Thus, as far as industrial applications are concerned, only iron and aluminum are cheap and abundant but both of these give rise to complex electrochemical interfaces, e.g., labile oxide formation. The more stable metallic electrodes are noble metals, where the cost is limiting. 

Thus the complex fluorides of aluminum do not offer any advantages over other fluorinating agents in halogen-exchange reactions and so they have not found application in industry, although sodium hexafluoroaluminate is produced in large quantities. 

Acetonitrile also is used as a catalyst and as an ingredient in transition-metal complex catalysts (35,36). There are many uses for it in the photographic industry and for the extraction and refining of copper and by-product ammonium sulfate (37—39). It also is used for dyeing textiles and in coating compositions (40,41). It is an effective stabilizer for chlorinated solvents, particulady in the presence of aluminum, and it has some application in... 

Nickel compounds are of great importance industrially and a review is available on the use of nickel in heterogeneous catalysis, electroplating, batteries, pigments, ceramics and hydrogen storage.76 This concerns simple aqua complexes of nickel(II) with anions such as carbonate, halide, hydroxide, nitrate and sulfate. Nickel acetate and formate find similar use, and the acetate is employed in the sealing of anodized aluminum.77 [Ni(NH3)6]Cl2 has been shown to be potentially applicable in heat pumps.78... 

Similarly, organoaluminum compounds in which the aluminum center is tetra-coordinated by way of a peroxo three-membered heterocycle subsequently undergo migration of alkyls, giving aluminum alkoxides (Scheme 6.142) [182]. The reaction is very similar to the boron-alkyl migration via a peroxoboron complex, which produces a variety of alcohols very efficiently. Likewise, mild oxidation of aluminum alkyls by controlled introduction of dry air has found substantial application in industrial production of the corresponding alcohols. 

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