Heterogeneous catalyst oxides

Enichem made one of the most important steps forward in the development of general heterogeneous oxidation catalysts in the early 1990s with the commercialization of titanium silicate (TS-1) catalysts. TS-1 has a structure similar to ZSM-5 in which the aluminium has been replaced by titanium it is prepared by reaction of tetraethylorthosilicate and tetra-ethylorthotitanate in the presence of an organic base such as tetrapropy-lammonium hydroxide. This catalyst is especially useful for oxidation reactions using hydrogen peroxide (Scheme 4.11), from which the only byproduct is water, clean production of hydroquinone being one of the possibilities. 

Understanding and controlling oxide surfaces are the key issues for the development of industrial oxide catalysts, but oxide surfaces are in general heterogeneous and complicated, and hence have been little studied so as to put them on a scientific basis by traditional approaches. While studies of the structure of surfaces have focused on metals and semiconductors over the past thirty years, the application of surface science techniques to metal oxides has blossomed only within the last decade[l-3]. 

Listed in the Table 6.1 are some of the more common sources of oxygen employed for oxidations of organic compounds. Dioxygen is not listed because it requires a catalyst for oxidation at low temperatures. Likewise, hydrogen peroxide and ozone exhibit different activities when used with the proper heterogeneous catalyst. 

Effective catalysts for heterogeneous oxidations using 02 are mainly Pt and Pd with some activity by Ir70 and Ru.71 Much work has gone into alcohol oxidations that are dehydrogenations to ketones or aldehydes. Also, oxygen may be inserted at allylic positions of alkenes and these may be dehydrogenated to ketones or aldehydes.72 In the case of aldehydes, additional oxidation may be accomplished to produce acids.72,73... 

Spiro [27] has derived quantitative expressions for the catalytic effect of electron conducting catalysts on oxidation-reduction reactions in solution in which the catalyst assumes the Emp imposed on it by the interacting redox couples. When both partial reaction polarization curves in the region of Emp exhibit Tafel type kinetics, he determined that the catalytic rate of reaction will be proportional to the concentrations of the two reactants raised to fractional powers in many simple cases, the power is one. On the other hand, if the polarization curve of one of the reactants shows diffusion-controlled kinetics, the catalytic rate of reaction will be proportional to the concentration of that reactant alone. Electroless metal deposition systems, at least those that appear to obey the MPT model, may be considered to be a special case of the general class of heterogeneously catalyzed reactions treated by Spiro. 

Phillips (1) A process for polymerizing ethylene and other linear olefins and di-olefins to make linear polymers. This is a liquid-phase process, operated in a hydrocarbon solvent at an intermediate pressure, using a heterogeneous oxide catalyst such as chromia on silica/ alumina. Developed in the 1950s by the Phillips Petroleum Company, Bartlesville, OK, and first commercialized at its plant in Pasadena, TX. In 1991, 77 reaction fines were either operating or under construction worldwide, accounting for 34 percent of worldwide capacity for linear polyethylene. 

Various works has pointed out the role of the nanostructure of the catalysts in their design.18-26 There is a general agreement that the nanostructure of the oxide particles is a key to control the reactivity and selectivity. Several papers have discussed the features and properties of nanostructured catalysts and oxides,27-41 but often the concept of nanostructure is not clearly defined. A heterogeneous catalyst should be optimized on a multiscale level, e.g. from the molecular level to the nano, micro- and meso-scale level.42 Therefore, not only the active site itself (molecular level) is relevant, but also the environment around the active site which orients or assist the coordination of the reactants, may induce sterical constrains on the transition state, and affect the short-range transport effects (nano-scale level).42 The catalytic surface process is in series with the transport of the reactants and the back-diffusion of the products which should be concerted with the catalytic transformation. Heat... 

Washing for over 100 h in a solvent such as toluene before the reaction resulted in no significant loss of the catalytic activity, and recovery and reusability studies at high turnover number also indicated the catalyst stability. Same catalysts, H5[PV2Mo10O40] supported on fiber and fabric carbon materials, catalyzed 02-based oxidations of acetaldehyde and 1-propanethiols [113], This aerobic heterogeneous oxidation proceeded under mild reaction conditions. 

Gryaznov, V. M., V. I. Vedernikov and S. G. Gul yanova. 1986. Participation of oxygen, having diffused through a silver membrane catalyst, in heterogeneous oxidation processes. Kinet. and Catal. 27(1) 129-133. 

K. Yamaguchi, N. Mizuno, Supported Ruthenium Catalyst for the Heterogeneous Oxidation of Alcohols. Chem. 41 (2002) 4538-4531. 

Anhydrous RuO has a tetragonal rutile structure with a slightly distorted octahedral structure, there being two sets of Ru-0 distances at 1.917(8) and 1.999(8) A [645] and has an extensive chemistry as a heterogeneous oxidation catalyst, a topic beyond the scope of this book. It is rarely used as a precursor for Ru oxidations, the hydrated form RuO. nH O (for brevity written below simply as RuO ) being much more effective in this respect. A procedure for converting inactive RuO (presumably the anhydrous form) to the hydrated RuO used in catalytic oxidations has been described [243]. 

TS-1 has unique properties as heterogeneous oxidation catalyst for the oxidation of organic compounds with H2O2 very high selectivities are obtained and this parallels the behaviour of Ti(IV) based homogeneous catalysts. 

The incorporation of vanadium(V) into the framework positions of silicalite-2 has been reported by Hari Prasad Rao and Ramaswamy469. With this heterogeneous oxidation catalyst the aromatic hydroxylation of benzene to phenol and to a mixture of hydroquinone and catechol could be promoted. A heterogeneous ZrS-1 catalyst, which has been prepared by incorporation of zirconium into a silicalite framework and which catalyzes the aromatic oxidation of benzene to phenol with hydrogen peroxide, is known as well in the literature. However, activity and selectivity were lower than observed with the analogous TS-1 catalyst. 

Acrolein and Acrylic Acid. Acrolein and acrylic acid are manufactured by the direct catalytic air oxidation of propylene. In a related process called ammoxida-tion, heterogeneous oxidation of propylene by oxygen in the presence of ammonia yields acrylonitrile (see Section 9.5.3). Similar catalysts based mainly on metal oxides of Mo and Sb are used in all three transformations. A wide array of single-phase systems such as bismuth molybdate or uranyl antimonate and multicomponent catalysts, such as iron oxide-antimony oxide or bismuth oxide-molybdenum oxide with other metal ions (Ce, Co, Ni), may be employed.939 The first commercial process to produce acrolein through the oxidation of propylene, however, was developed by Shell applying cuprous oxide on Si-C catalyst in the presence of I2 promoter. 

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