Chromium oxides esters

Hydrogenations with coppcr-chromium oxide catalyst are usually carried out in the liquid phase in stainless steel autoclaves at pressures up to 5000-6000 lb. per square inch. A solvent is not usually necessary for hydrogenation of an ester at 250° since the original ester and the alcohol or glycol produced serve as the reaction medium. However, when dealing with small quantities and also at temperatures below 200° a solvent is desirable this may be methyl alcohol, ethyi alcohol, dioxan or methylcyc/ohexane. 

This preparation illustrates the use of the copper-chromium oxide catalyst in the r uotion of esters of dibasic acids to glycols ... 

C and 19,600 kPa (2800 psi). The catalyst is a complex aluminum—ca dmium —chromium oxide that has high activity and exceptionally long life. The process is claimed to give a conversion of ester to alcohol of about 99% retaining essentially all of the original double bonds. 

Hydrogenation of Fatty Acid Methyl Esters The hydrogenolysis of fatty acid methyl esters into the corresponding fatty alcohols and methanol is performed at 200-300°C and a H2 pressure of 200-300 bar with the aid of copper oxide/chromium oxide catalysts (Adkins catalysts). Three different procedures are applied [39 a-c] ... 

Hydrogenolyses of carboxylic acids and esters to the corresponding aldehydes seems very attractive due to their simplicity. Copper chromites are the most widely used catalysts.15 Raney copper and zinc oxide-chromium oxide have also been used for this process.16-18 The hydrogenolysis of methyl benzoate to benzaldehyde was studied on various metal oxides at 300-350°C. ZnO, Zr02 and Ce02 presented high activities and selectivities (Scheme 4.8). 

With the same excess of catalysts hydrogenations of the esters over Raney nickel could be carried out at temperatures as low as 25-125° at 350atm with comparable results (80% yields). However, benzene rings were saturated under these conditions [55]. In addition to nickel and copper, zinc and chromium oxides, rhenium obtained by reduction of rhenium heptoxide also catalyzes hydrogenation of esters to alcohols at 150-250° and 167-340 atm in 35-100% yields [42]. 

Naturally occurring fatty alcohols used in the fragrance industry are produced principally by reduction of the methyl esters of the corresponding carboxylic acids, which are obtained by transesterification of natural fats and oils with methanol. Industrial reduction processes include catalytic hydrogenation in the presence of copper-chromium oxide catalysts (Adkins catalysts) and reduction with sodium (Bouveault—Blanc reduction). Unsaturated alcohols can also be prepared by the latter method. Numerous alcohols used in flavor compositions are, meantime, produced by biotechnological processes [11]. Alcohols are starting materials for aldehydes and esters. 

Diarene metals generally decompose under conditions of normal electrophilic substitution, but dibenzene chromium can be metalated with amyl sodium in alkanes, and subsequent reaction with carbon dioxide and dimethyl sulfate results in a complex mixture of mono-, di-, and poly-substituted dibenzene chromium methyl esters. It is interesting that these polysubstituted compounds are homoannular in contrast to the corresponding ferrocene compounds. In view of the scanty evidence and ease of oxidation, it is impossible to conclude whether the diarene metals are less aromatic than the dicyclopentadienyl metals as predicted by simple theory (Sec. III.A). 

Chromic acid oxidation of saturated hydrocarbons starts with hydrogen abstraction to give a caged radical pair.113,114 The collapse of the latter leads to a chromium(IV) ester, which hydrolyzes to the product tertiary alcohol. The postulation of the caged pair was necessary to explain the high degree of retention in oxidation of (+)-3-methylheptane 113... 

Fatty alcohols are obtained by direct hydrogenation of fatty acids or by hydrogenation of fatty acid esters. Typically, this is performed over copper catalysts at elevated temperature (170°C-270°C) and pressure (40-300 bar hydrogen) [26], By this route, completely saturated fatty alcohols are produced. In the past, unsaturated fatty alcohols were produced via hydrolysis of whale oil (a natural wax occurring in whale blubber) or by reduction of waxes with sodium (Bouveault-Blanc reduction). Today, they can be obtained by selective hydrogenation at even higher temperatures (250°C-280°C), but lower pressure up to 25 bar over metal oxides (zinc oxide, chromium oxide, iron oxide, or cadmium oxide) or partially deactivated copper chromite catalysts [26],... 

However, over Ni-kieselguhr in the absence of solvent or in ether and methylcyclo-hexane 32-33% of a diester, ethyl 3-(3 -hydroxybutyryloxy)butyrate (8), was produced along with 68-67% of ethyl 3-hydroxybutyrate and small quantities of dehydroacetic acid, and over copper-chromium oxide 16% of the diester and 7% of dehydroacetic acid were formed in the absence of solvent. It was suggested that the diester is formed through the hydrogenation of the intermediate 9, which results from 2 mol of acetoacetic ester with elimination of 1 mol of ethanol and that the condensation reaction is reversible (Scheme 5.6). Hence, the formation of the diester is depressed in the hydrogenation in ethanol.121 The reaction pathway in Scheme 5.6 has... 

The hydrogenation of fatty acids or fatty esters is of industrial importance for the production of fatty alcohols. Usually, the hydrogenation is performed in slurry-phase or fixed-bed reactors over copper-chromium oxide catalyst at elevated temperature and pressure.37 Rieke et al. investigated the hydrogenation of methyl dodecanoate over copper-chromium oxide at 280°C and 13.8 MPa H2, in order to study the side reactions that occur during hydrogenation.37 On the basis of the potential reaction routes described by Rieke et al., the pathways leading to C12 alcohol and various byproducts are summarized in Scheme 10.2, with exclusion of the formation and reactions of acetals. It has been found that both catalytic activity and selectivity correlated well with the crystallinity of the copper-chromium ox-... 

The hydrogenation of an unsaturated ester to an unsaturated alcohol may be possible over zinc-chromium oxide as catalyst, although the catalyst is known to be much less active for the usual ester hydrogenations than copper-chromium oxide. Ethyl or butyl (eq. 10.25) oleates were hydrogenated to octadecenol in yields of over 60% with a zinc-chromium oxide at 280-300°C and 20 MPa H2.16 The butyl ester was much preferred to the ethyl ester, since it was difficult to separate the ethyl ester from the alcohol product because of their similar boiling points. 

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