Catalyst drawbacks

Particular drawbacks of using alkylsiHcon and alkyltin haHdes with AlCl for the cationic polymerization of terpenes are low yields and the fact that they require rigorously dried feeds (<50 ppm H2O) to be effective. Increased water content results in lower yields and lower softening points (85). Catalyst systems comprised of AlCl with antimony haHdes in the presence or absence of a lower alkyl, alkenyl, or aralkyl haHde are particularly effective in systems containing up to 300 ppm H2O (89,90). Use of 2—12 wt % of a system composed of 2—3 parts AlCl, 0.7—0.9 parts SbCl, and 0—0.2 parts of an organic... 

Sta.rting from Phenol. Phenol can be selectively oxidized into -benzoquinone with oxygen. The reaction is catalyzed by cuprous chloride. At low catalyst concentration, the principal drawback of this method is the high pressure of oxygen that is required, leading to difficult safety procedures. It appears that a high concentration of the catalyst (50% of Cu(I)—phenol) allows the reaction to proceed at atmospheric pressure (58). 

C and 5 kg/cm pressure (see Molecularsieves). Selectivity for toluene and xylenes peaks at 550°C but continues with increasing temperature for hensene. The Cyclar process (Fig. 6) developed joindy by BP and UOP uses a spherical, proprietary seoHte catalyst with a nonnoble metallic promoter to convert C or C paraffins to aromatics. The drawback to the process economics is the production of fuel gas, alow value by-product. BP operated a... 

In the Institut Fransais du Petrc le process (62), ethylene is dimerized into polymer-grade 1-butene (99.5% purity) suitable for the manufacture of linear low density polyethylene. It uses a homogeneous catalyst system that eliminates some of the drawbacks of heterogeneous catalysts. It also inhibits the isomerization of 1-butene to 2-butene, thus eliminating the need for superfractionation of the product (63,64). The process also uses low operating temperatures, 50—60°C, and pressures (65). 

Sohd catalysts are widely employed because they are usually cheap, are easily separated from the reaction medium, and are adaptable to either flow or nonflow reactors. Their drawbacks are lack of specificity and possibly high temperatures and pressures. 

Advantages of the hydrosilation system (Fig. 3) include the elimination of solvent, improved cure speed, and potential for UV or thermal cure. Drawbacks to the system include more expensive multiroll coating methods, potential poisoning of the Pt catalyst (with Sn, S, Cr, amines, etc.), poor anchorage to some films, and a need to carefully balance the hydride to vinyl ratio employed for cure to avoid detrimental interactions with acid containing adhesives [23,53]. 

Asymmetric Diels-Alder reactions using a dienophile containing a chiral auxiliary were developed more than 20 years ago. Although the auxiliary-based Diels-Alder reaction is still important, it has two drawbacks - additional steps are necessary, first to introduce the chiral auxiliary into the starting material, and then to remove it after the reaction. At least an equimolar amount of the chiral auxiliary is, moreover, necessary. After the discovery that Lewis acids catalyze the Diels-Alder reaction, the introduction of chirality into such catalysts has been investigated. The Diels-Alder reaction utilizing a chiral Lewis acid is truly a practical synthetic transformation, not only because the products obtained are synthetically useful, but also because a catalytic amount of the chiral component can, in theory, produce a huge amount of the chiral product. 

The rhodium complexes are excellent catalysts for hydrogenation of NBR. At low temperature and pressure, high catalyst concentrations are used to obtain a better rate of reactions. Due to higher selectivity of the reaction, pressure and temperature can be increased to very high values. Consequently the rhodium concentration can be greatly reduced, which leads to high turnover rates. The only practical drawback of Rh complex is its high cost. This has initiated the development of techniques for catalyst removal and recovery (see Section VU), as well as alternate catalyst systems based on cheaper noble metals, such as ruthenium or palladium (see Sections IV.A and B). 

Postcombustion processes are designed to capture NO, after it has been produced. In a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system, ammonia is mixed with flue gas in the presence of a catalyst to transform the NO, into molecular nitrogen and water. In a selective noncatalytic reduction (SNCR) system, a reducing agent, such as ammonia or urea, is injected into the furnace above the combustion zone where it reacts with the NO, to form nitrogen gas and water vapor. Existing postcombustion processes are costly and each has drawbacks. SCR relies on expensive catalysts and experiences problems with ammonia adsorption on the fly ash. SNCR systems have not been proven for boilers larger than 300 MW. 

Both sulfuric acid and hydrofluoric acid catalyzed alkylations are low temperature processes. Table 3-13 gives the alkylation conditions for HF and H2SO4 processes. One drawback of using H2SO4 and HF in alkylation is the hazards associated with it. Many attempts have been tried to use solid catalysts such as zeolites, alumina and ion exchange resins. Also strong solid acids such as sulfated zirconia and SbFs/sulfonic acid resins were tried. Although they were active, nevertheless they lack stability. No process yet proved successful due to the fast deactivation of the catalyst. A new process which may have commercial possibility, uses... 

Fresh catalyst contains sodium as part of the manufacturing process. Chapter 3 discusses the drawbacks of sodium that are inherent in the fresh catalyst. 

Another drawback to the use of amino-substituted benzenes in electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions is that Friedel-Crafts reactions are not successful (Section 16.3). The amino group forms an acid-base complex with the AICI3 catalyst, which prevents further reaction from occurring. Both drawbacks can be overcome, however, b3 carrying out electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions on the corresponding amide rather than on the free amine. 

A drawback of the Wessling methodology, however, is that trace amounts of acid catalysts are required to completely eliminate the methoxy groups. A conse-... 

The main drawback of the system is that the ketone catalyst slowly decomposes during the reaction, which means that 0.2-0.3 equivalents are needed for complete conversion. More robust catalysts, which can be used in 1-3 mol%, have recently been reported, but have not as yet been widely applied [8]. Ketone 1 is commercially available, or can easily be synthesized in large scale in two steps from d-fructose. Ent-1 is obtained in a similar way from L-sorbose. 

Nickel. As a methanation catalyst, nickel is presently preeminent. It is relatively cheap, it is very active, and it is the most selective to methane of all the metals. Its main drawback is that it is easily poisoned by sulfur, a fault common to all the known active methanation catalysts. The nickel content of commercial nickel catalysts is 25-77 wt %. Nickel is dispersed on a high-surface-area, refractory support such as alumina or kieselguhr. Some supports inhibit the formation of carbon by Reaction 4. Chromia-supported nickel has been studied by Czechoslovakian and Russian investigators. 

Interesting features of this process include the potential for one-stage methanation to completion without the need for gas recycle. This feature was cited by Chem Systems, but, according to Rheinpruessen-Koppers work on the Fischer-Tropsch (52, 53), gas recycle was necessary with high H2 CO ratios. Drawbacks include such factors as catalyst attrition (48, 50), and low volume productivities of the methanator (less than one-tenth that reported for fixed bed adiabatic reactors) (48, 50, 52, 53, 61). 

An obvious drawback in RCM-based synthesis of unsaturated macrocyclic natural compounds is the lack of control over the newly formed double bond. The products formed are usually obtained as mixture of ( /Z)-isomers with the (E)-isomer dominating in most cases. The best solution for this problem might be a sequence of RCAM followed by (E)- or (Z)-selective partial reduction. Until now, alkyne metathesis has remained in the shadow of alkene-based metathesis reactions. One of the reasons maybe the lack of commercially available catalysts for this type of reaction. When alkyne metathesis as a new synthetic tool was reviewed in early 1999 [184], there existed only a single report disclosed by Fiirstner s laboratory [185] on the RCAM-based conversion of functionalized diynes to triple-bonded 12- to 28-membered macrocycles with the concomitant expulsion of 2-butyne (cf Fig. 3a). These reactions were catalyzed by Schrock s tungsten-carbyne complex G. Since then, Furstner and coworkers have achieved a series of natural product syntheses, which seem to establish RCAM followed by partial reduction to (Z)- or (E)-cycloalkenes as a useful macrocyclization alternative to RCM. As work up to early 2000, including the development of alternative alkyne metathesis catalysts, is competently covered in Fiirstner s excellent review [2a], we will concentrate here only on the most recent natural product syntheses, which were all achieved by Fiirstner s team. 

We should also compare the scope of the technologies for different waste streams. With the exception of Brocat which only handles HBr, the systems can be used with HBr or metal salt streams. However, H2O2 has an advantage in terms of handling impurities in the steam such as low levels of organics. Chlorine and chlorate will suffer from reduced efficiency due to side reactions Brocat has potential problems with catalyst poisoning. H2O2 suffers no major drawbacks in this respect. 

Compared to synthetic catalysts, enzymes have many advantages. First of all, being natural products, they are environmentally benign and therefore their use does not meet pubhc opposition. Enzymes act at atmospheric pressure, ambient temperature, and at pH between 4 and 9, thus avoiding extreme conditions, which might result in undesired side reactions. Enzymes are extremely selective (see below). There are also, of course, some drawbacks of biocatalysts. For example, enzymes are known in only one enantiomeric form, as they consist of natural enantiomeric (homochiral) amino acids their possible modifications are difficult to achieve (see Section 5.3.2) they are prone to deactivation owing to inappropriate operation parameters and to inhibition phenomena. 

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