Hydroformylation kinetics

In contrast to triphenylphosphine-modified rhodium catalysis, a high aldehyde product isomer ratio via cobalt-catalyzed hydroformylation requires high CO partial pressures, eg, 9 MPa (1305 psi) and 110°C. Under such conditions alkyl isomerization is almost completely suppressed, and the 4.4 1 isomer ratio reflects the precursor mixture which contains principally the kinetically favored -butyryl to isobutyryl cobalt tetracarbonyl. At lower CO partial pressures, eg, 0.25 MPa (36.25 psi) and 110°C, the rate of isomerization of the -butyryl cobalt intermediate is competitive with butyryl reductive elimination to aldehyde. The product n/iso ratio of 1.6 1 obtained under these conditions reflects the equihbrium isomer ratio of the precursor butyryl cobalt tetracarbonyls (11). 

The composition of the products of reactions involving intermediates formed by metaHation depends on whether the measured composition results from kinetic control or from thermodynamic control. Thus the addition of diborane to 2-butene initially yields tri-j iAbutylboraneTri-j -butylborane. If heated and allowed to react further, this product isomerizes about 93% to the tributylborane, the product initially obtained from 1-butene (15). Similar effects are observed during hydroformylation reactions however, interpretation is more compHcated because the relative rates of isomerization and of carbonylation of the reaction intermediate depend on temperature and on hydrogen and carbon monoxide pressures (16). 

The catalysts used in hydroformylation are typically organometallic complexes. Cobalt-based catalysts dominated hydroformylation until 1970s thereafter rhodium-based catalysts were commerciahzed. Synthesized aldehydes are typical intermediates for chemical industry [5]. A typical hydroformylation catalyst is modified with a ligand, e.g., tiiphenylphoshine. In recent years, a lot of effort has been put on the ligand chemistry in order to find new ligands for tailored processes [7-9]. In the present study, phosphine-based rhodium catalysts were used for hydroformylation of 1-butene. Despite intensive research on hydroformylation in the last 50 years, both the reaction mechanisms and kinetics are not in the most cases clear. Both associative and dissociative mechanisms have been proposed [5-6]. The discrepancies in mechanistic speculations have also led to a variety of rate equations for hydroformylation processes. 

A lot of research has been published on hydroformylation of alkenes, but the vast majority of the effort has been focused on the chemistry of various metal-ligand systems. Quantitative kinetic studies including modeling of rates and selectivities are much more scarce. In this work, we present the approach to modeling of hydroformylation kinetics and gas-solubility. Hydroformylation of 1-butene with a rhodium-based catalyst was selected as a case study. 

Modeling of the hydroformylation kinetics was started by constracting a stoichiometric scheme for the process. An detailed reaction pattern is shown in Scheme 29.1. 

Hydroformylation of 1-butene in the presence of the Rh catalyst gave pentanal (P) and 2-methyl bntanal as the main products. Just trace amounts of c/5-and trans-1-butene were detected as by-prodncts. No butane was detected in experiments, where a stoichiometric ratio of CO and H2 were used. Based on preliminary considerations of prodnct distribntions, a kinetic model was developed. The kinetic parameters obtained from the model were well identified and physically reasonable. The prodnct concentrations are predicted very well by the kinetic model. The kinetic model can be further refined by considering detailed reaction mechanisms and extending it to the domain of lower partial pressures of CO and H2. 

A catalyst used for the u-regioselective hydroformylation of internal olefins has to combine a set of properties, which include high olefin isomerization activity, see reaction b in Scheme 1 outlined for 4-octene. Thus the olefin migratory insertion step into the rhodium hydride bond must be highly reversible, a feature which is undesired in the hydroformylation of 1-alkenes. Additionally, p-hydride elimination should be favoured over migratory insertion of carbon monoxide of the secondary alkyl rhodium, otherwise Ao-aldehydes are formed (reactions a, c). Then, the fast regioselective terminal hydroformylation of the 1-olefin present in a low equilibrium concentration only, will lead to enhanced formation of n-aldehyde (reaction d) as result of a dynamic kinetic control. 

No catalyst has an infinite lifetime. The accepted view of a catalytic cycle is that it proceeds via a series of reactive species, be they transient transition state type structures or relatively more stable intermediates. Reaction of such intermediates with either excess ligand or substrate can give rise to very stable complexes that are kinetically incompetent of sustaining catalysis. The textbook example of this is triphenylphosphine modified rhodium hydroformylation, where a plot of activity versus ligand metal ratio shows the classical volcano plot whereby activity reaches a peak at a certain ratio but then falls off rapidly in the presence of excess phosphine, see Figure... 

A process for the hydroformylation of 1-octene to nonanal was designed for an immobilised homogeneous catalyst. The production capacity was fixed at 100 kton of nonanal. Kinetic data reported for the rhodium catalyst complex of N-(3-trimethoxysilane-n-propyl)-4,5-bis(diphenylphosphino)-phenoxazine immobilised on silica, (2) was used as a starting point. Other process specifications are given in Table 3.8. 

Up to now only limited kinetic data and thus rate models (and even mechanistic details) of aqueous phase operation are available. Thus, in many cases only estimates and experimentally found data are at the disposal for reaction engineers work (e.g.[25]). The state of the art of the hydroformylation of higher alkenes (>C -) comprises additions of supplementary solvents/diluents or extraction fluids, surface-active agents (detergents), intensity and mode of stirring ([22b], power of agitation (cf. Figure 5.5) operation in... 

Quite new ideas for the reactor design of aqueous multiphase fluid/fluid reactions have been reported by researchers from Oxeno. In packed tubular reactors and under unconventional reaction conditions they observed very high space-time yields which increased the rate compared with conventional operation by a factor of 10 due to a combination of mass transfer area and kinetics [29]. Thus the old question of aqueous-biphase hydroformylation "Where does the reaction takes place " - i.e., at the interphase or the bulk of the liquid phase [23,56h] - is again questionable, at least under the conditions (packed tubular reactors, other hydrodynamic conditions, in mini plants, and in the unusual,and costly presence of ethylene glycol) and not in harsh industrial operation. The considerable reduction of the laminar boundary layer in highly loaded packed tubular reactors increases the mass transfer coefficients, thus Oxeno claim the successful hydroformylation of 1-octene [25a,26,29c,49a,49e,58d,58f], The search for a new reactor design may also include operation in microreactors [59]. 

In addition to Rh-catalysed hydroformylation, this special phase behaviour has been successfully applied to other continuous catalytic reactions - such as Ni-catalysed, enantioselective hydrovinylation [66] and the lipase-catalysed kinetic resolution and enantiomer separation of chiral alcohols [67]. 

To estimate costs for the liquid-liquid biphasic hydroformylation using ionic liquids, a process was designed for the production of 100,000 tons per year of nonanal. The use of ionic liquids in hydroformylation catalysis is a fairly new technology and exact kinetic data are scarce, thus the TOFs reported for the Rh-sulfoxantphos system [80] have been used to determine catalyst inventory and reactor dimensions. In a similar way the plant design for the SILP process for a production capacity of 100,000 tons per year of butanal has been derived based on preliminary literature results [68]. The process flow sheets for both process variations are shown in Figures 7.12 and 7.13. 

The kinetic scheme in Figure 9.23 pictures the alternative reaction possibilities of the alkyl species (here the CH3 species) on a growth site to react either with CO for hydroformylation or with CH2 for FT synthesis. 

The formation of multinuclear clusters is much more favorable for rhodium than for cobalt. Additional evidence was obtained in comparative hydroformylation rate studies of 1-heptene and of cyclohexene at 75°C and 150 atm 1/1 H2/CO (19). For the acyclic olefin the kinetics followed the kinetic expression (except at low olefin) ... 

As normally practiced in a cobalt process, the aldehyde product contains about 10% alcohol, formed by subsequent hydrogenation. Marko (34) reported that the hydrogenation is more sensitive to carbon monoxide partial pressure than is the hydroformylation reaction and, in the region between 32 and 210 atm, is inversely proportional to the square of the partial pressure. The full kinetic expression for alcohol formation is expressed by Eq. (17). 

This is similar to kinetic expression for other transition metal-catalyzed hydroformylations, except for the unusually high dependence on metal concentration. 

King and coworkers107 reported results for the hydroformylation reaction of ethylene using the Fe(CO)5 catalyst in the temperature range of 110-140 °C. The conclusions from kinetics testing were (1) the reaction rate was inhibited by Pco in the range 10-25 atm (2) the rate was found to exhibit second order dependency on... 

Diphosphine-based ligands form the basis of current research in hydroformylation. As Figure 9 shows, free energy profiles have been recently proposed [22] to discuss the kinetics and the reaction mechanism. We first see the rapid equilibrium between ee and ea... 

The desired accuracy of the thermodynamic and kinetic activation parameters in systems of commercial interest has not yet been achieved in quantum chemical studies of the hydroformylation. Nevertheless, theoretical investigations have cast considerable light on this still little understood catalytic reaction. 

The investigation of the kinetic aspects of hydroformylation is still an underdeveloped field. The reason is the complexity of the reaction, especially with ligand-modified catalysts. The reaction rate r will certainly depend on temperature T and on the following concentrations ... 

In almost all kinetic investigations it is found that hydroformylation is first order in substrate and hydrogen concentration. This suggests slow steps in the reaction cycle involving olefin and hydrogen, and the reaction rate ta becomes... 

A review about kinetic investigations in hydroformylation is given in [4]. Detailed information about solving complex reaction networks with many examples on hydroformylation is found in the excellent book by Helf-ferich [80]. 

If one would be able to derive from the experimental data an accurate rate equation like (12) the number of terms in the denominator gives us the number of reactions involved in forward and backward direction that should be included in the scheme of reactions, including the reagents involved. The use of analytical expressions is limited to schemes of only two reaction steps. In a catalytic sequence usually more than two reactions occur. We can represent the kinetics by an analytical expression only, if a series of fast pre-equilibria occurs (as in the hydroformylation reaction, Chapter 9, or as in the Wacker reaction, Chapter 15) or else if the rate determining step occurs after the resting state of the catalyst, either immediately, or as the second one as shown in Figure 3.1. In the examples above we have seen that often the rate equation takes a simpler form and does not even show all substrates participating in the reaction. 

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