Anhydrides, hydrolysis

Under sufficient pressure to permit a Hquid phase at 55—56°C, the acetaldehyde monoperoxyacetate decomposes nearly quantitatively into anhydride and water in the presence of copper. Anhydride hydrolysis is unavoidable, however, because of the presence of water. When the product is removed as a vapor, an equiUbrium concentration of anhydride higher than that of acetic acid remains in the reactor. Water is normally quite low. Air entrains the acetic anhydride and water as soon as they form. 

High purity acetaldehyde is desirable for oxidation. The aldehyde is diluted with solvent to moderate oxidation and to permit safer operation. In the hquid take-off process, acetaldehyde is maintained at 30—40 wt % and when a vapor product is taken, no more than 6 wt % aldehyde is in the reactor solvent. A considerable recycle stream is returned to the oxidation reactor to increase selectivity. Recycle air, chiefly nitrogen, is added to the air introducted to the reactor at 4000—4500 times the reactor volume per hour. The customary catalyst is a mixture of three parts copper acetate to one part cobalt acetate by weight. Either salt alone is less effective than the mixture. Copper acetate may be as high as 2 wt % in the reaction solvent, but cobalt acetate ought not rise above 0.5 wt %. The reaction is carried out at 45—60°C under 100—300 kPa (15—44 psi). The reaction solvent is far above the boiling point of acetaldehyde, but the reaction is so fast that Httle escapes unoxidized. This temperature helps oxygen absorption, reduces acetaldehyde losses, and inhibits anhydride hydrolysis. 

Sodium acetate reacts with carbon dioxide in aqueous solution to produce acetic anhydride and sodium bicarbonate (49). Under suitable conditions, the sodium bicarbonate precipitates and can be removed by centrifugal separation. Presumably, the cold water solution can be extracted with an organic solvent, eg, chloroform or ethyl acetate, to furnish acetic anhydride. The half-life of aqueous acetic anhydride at 19°C is said to be no more than 1 h (2) and some other data suggests a 6 min half-life at 20°C (50). The free energy of acetic anhydride hydrolysis is given as —65.7 kJ/mol (—15.7 kcal/mol) (51) in water. In wet chloroform, an extractant for anhydride, the free energy of hydrolysis is strangely much lower, —50.0 kJ/mol (—12.0 kcal/mol) (51). Half-life of anhydride in moist chloroform maybe as much as 120 min. Ethyl acetate, chloroform, isooctane, and / -octane may have promise for extraction of acetic anhydride. Benzene extracts acetic anhydride from acetic acid—water solutions (52). 

Hydration and Dehydration. Maleic anhydride is hydrolyzed to maleic acid with water at room temperature (68). Fumaric acid is obtained if the hydrolysis is performed at higher temperatures. Catalysts enhance formation of fumaric acid from maleic anhydride hydrolysis through maleic acid isomerization. 

It had been decided to purify N,N-dimethylaniline by mixing acetic anhydride, water and hydrochloric acid following a published operating method. However, a slight modification was made that consisted in using the double amount of reagents. The medium was cooled with ice. When hydrochloric acid was introduced, the anhydride hydrolysis was so violent that it caused the apparatus to detonate. 

Note that in these three examples involving hydrogen peroxide, chromium trioxide and sodium nitrite, dangerous reactions have been described for carboxyiic acids (see on p.316-317). They all referred to the three following systems acetic acid-/hydrogen peroxide, acetic acid/chromium trioxide and o-phthalic acid/sodium nitrite. One can ask oneself whether the same reactions did not take place after the acetic and phthalic anhydride hydrolysis. 

Crude dimethylaniline was being freed of impurities by treatment with acetic anhydride according to a published procedure [1]. However, three times the recommended proportion of anhydride was used, and the reaction mixture was ice cooled before addition of diluted hydrochloric acid to hydrolyse the excess anhydride. Hydrolysis then proceeded with explosive violence. 

The fatty alcohol hydrophobic "tails" are incorporated into the micelles as the concentrate is aged (Figure 1), shown by the increasing viscosity as the foam ages but after the anhydride hydrolysis reaction is complete. 

Succinic anhydride is clearly hydrogenated more readily than the acid, as was the case with phthalic acid (Scheme 15.17), but faster absolute rates were observed in the hydrogenation of o-phthalic acid and phthalic anhydride to phtha-lide. In these reactions, the problem of anhydride hydrolysis is less significant as the acid can also be reduced to the same lactone product... 

P4.07.Q8. ACETIC ANHYDRIDE HYDROLYSIS. ADIABATIC BATCH AND CSTR... 

The catalyst components are generally dissolved in methyl acetate which acts as both reactant and solvent. Other solvents may be used and in fact, upon several batch recycles where lower boiling products are distilled off, the solvent is an ethylidene diacetate-acetic acid mixture. Any water introduced in the reaction mixture will be consumed via ester and anhydride hydrolysis, therefore anhydrous conditions are warranted. Typical batch reaction examples are presented in Table 1. There is generally sufficient reactivity when carbon monoxide and hydrogen are present at 200-500 psi. Similar results were obtained from the pilot plant using a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR). The reaction can also be run continuously over a supported catalyst with a feed of methyl acetate, methyl iodide, CO, and hydrogen. 

Simultaneous oleic anhydride hydrolysis resulting in a self-reproducing vesicle system. 

Anhydrides are somewhat more difficult to hydrolyze than acyl halides, but here too water is usually a strong enough nucleophile. The mechanism is usually tetrahedral. Only under acid catalysis does the SnI mechanism occur and seldom even then.s06 Anhydride hydrolysis can also be catalyzed by bases. Of course, OH- attacks more readily than water, but other bases can also catalyze the reaction. This phenomenon, called nucleophilic catalysis (p. 334). is actually the result of two successive tetrahedral mechanisms. For example, pyridine catalyzes the hydrolysis of acetic anhydride in this manner.507... 

Acetic-mesitoic anhydride hydrolysis was found to be dependent upon /i0, to have AS = — 3.8 eu and bond fission was found to be predominantly mesitoyl-oxygen. This evidence strongly suggests the A-l mechanism in-... 

Bunton and Fendler297 have shown that fluoride ion will catalyse the hydrolysis of acetic and succinic anhydrides in water and aqueous dioxan. In water, the rate of loss of acetic anhydride is greater than the rate of formation of acetic acid, showing the build up of acetyl fluoride. The hydrolysis of succinic anhydride is also catalysed by fluoride ion but no build up of succinyl fluoride is seen. The catalysis of anhydride hydrolysis by pyridine has been discussed in the previous section, and it is perhaps sufficient to mention here that the catalytic coefficient for pyridine is about 30,000 times greater than that for acetate ion in 50% aqueous acetone at 25°C. 

Some evidence234 for Zn—OH attack in anhydride hydrolysis has been obtained using the complex (65) (Section 61.4.11) but the evidence is not definitive, and other mechanisms could apply. Large rate enhancements occur in the Zn11- and Cu -promoted hydrolysis of the lactam (66) (Section 61.4.10). Rates increase commensurate with the ionization of a metal-bound water molecular and sigmoidal pH-rate profiles are observed. Rate enhancements of 9 x 105 and 1 x 103 occur with (66)—Cu—OH and (66)—Zn—OH compared with the free ligand. A number of other reactions which are believed to proceed via M—OH species, in kinetically labile systems, are considered in Section 61.4.3. 

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