Lead cathodes

Crude lead contains traces of a number of metals. The desilvering of lead is considered later under silver (Chapter 14). Other metallic impurities are removed by remelting under controlled conditions when arsenic and antimony form a scum of lead(II) arsenate and antimonate on the surface while copper forms an infusible alloy which also takes up any sulphur, and also appears on the surface. The removal of bismuth, a valuable by-product, from lead is accomplished by making the crude lead the anode in an electrolytic bath consisting of a solution of lead in fluorosilicic acid. Gelatin is added so that a smooth coherent deposit of lead is obtained on the pure lead cathode when the current is passed. The impurities here (i.e. all other metals) form a sludge in the electrolytic bath and are not deposited on the cathode. 

Hydroxylamine is derived from ammonia by replacing one hydrogen atom by a hydroxyl group. It is prepared by the electrolytic reduction of nitric acid, using a lead cathode ... 

On a large scale, hydrogen peroxide is produced by the electrolysis of ammonium hydrogensulphate, using a platinum anode and a lead cathode separated by a diaphragm. The essential process occurring is ... 

The electrolysis is conducted at 90—95°C and an anode current density of about 50 120 A/m when using lead alloy anodes and lead cathodes. Using graphite electrodes, the current density is from 70 100 A/m using titanium anodes and graphite cathodes, the current density is 50 80 A/m (82). 

It was an adaptation of the Castner cell to sodium chloride for fused caustic electrolysis. A mixture of sodium chloride and other chlorides, molten at 620°C, was electroly2ed ia rectangular or oval cells heated only by the current. Several cells have been patented for the electrolysis of fused salt ia cells with molten lead cathodes (65). However, it is difficult to separate the lead from the sodium (see Electrochemical processing). 

Sodium nitrite has been synthesized by a number of chemical reactions involving the reduction of sodium nitrate [7631-99-4] NaNO. These include exposure to heat, light, and ionizing radiation (2), addition of lead metal to fused sodium nitrate at 400—450°C (2), reaction of the nitrate in the presence of sodium ferrate and nitric oxide at - 400° C (2), contacting molten sodium nitrate with hydrogen (7), and electrolytic reduction of sodium nitrate in a cell having a cation-exchange membrane, rhodium-plated titanium anode, and lead cathode (8). 

Materials that are corrosion resistant to the expected cathodic polarization qualify as impressed current cathodes. Austenitic CrNi steels are used with strong acids. The oleum (i.e., fuming sulfuric acid) and concentrated sulfuric acid tanks used in sulfonating alkanes and in the neutralization of sulfonic acids are anodi-cally protected using platinized brass as cathodes [15]. Lead cathodes are used to protect titanium heat exchangers in rayon spinning baths [16]. 

The reaction proceeds in a solution of [N(C2H5)4]Br in acetonitrile at lead cathodes. The current yield is about 70%. 

The reduction of aromatic sulphoxides into the corresponding thioethers appears to be general it occurs at a lead cathode, in alcoholic sulphuric acid solution and also in the presence of tetraalkylammonium salts - Data in DMF are also available, when phenol is used as a proton donor. 

Electrolytic cleaning should be preceded by scrubbing to remove loosely adhering corrosion products. One method of electrol c cleaning that has been found to be useful for many metals and alloys is as follows Solution 5 percent (by weight) H2SO4 Anode carbon or lead Cathode test specimen Cathode current density 20 A/dm (129 A/in )... 

Further evidence for surface effects upon the stereochemistry of electrochemical reduction of ketones comes from the discovery that the nature of the cathode material may effect stereochemistry. Reduction of 2-methylcyclo-hexanone affords pure trans-2-methylcyclohexanone at mercury or lead cathodes, a mixture of cis and trans alcohols (mostly trans) at nickel, and pure cis alcohol at copper 81 >. Reduction could not be effected at platinum presumably hydrogen evolution takes place before the potential necessary for reduction of the ketone can be reached. 

In order to study the identity and nature of the intermediate, Aylmer-K.elly et al. (1973) employed modulated specular reflectance spectroscopy. They studied the reduction reaction at a lead cathode in both aqueous and non-aqueous electrolytes. A phase-sensitive detection system was employed by the authors, locked-in to the frequency of the potential modulation. The potential was modulated at 30 Hz between the reference potential of — 1.0 V vs. Ag/AgCl and a more cathodic limit. 

Figure 3.45 (a) Spectral dependence of the optical response on pulsing a lead cathode in 0.4 M tetramethylammonium perchlorate in propylene carbonate saturated with C02 from + I.0V to +0.2 V at 30 Hz. The reference electrode was Li/0.5M Li +. (b) As in (a) except solvent changed to acetonitrile. From Aylmer-Kelly et at. (1973). 

The original process used aqueous tetraethylammonium ethylsulfate as the electrolyte, a lead cathode, and a lead-silver alloy anode. The Mark II process, commercialized in the mid-1970s, uses an emulsion of acrylonitrile in aqueous sodium phosphate containing a salt of the hexamethylene-bis-(ethyldibutylammonium) cation. The process was invented in 1959 by M. M. Baizer at Monsanto Corporation, St. Louis, MO. It was commercialized in 1965 and has been continuously improved ever since. The process is also operated in Japan by Asahi Chemical Industry Company. In 1990, the world production of adiponitrile by this process was over 200,000 tonnes per year. 

Aliphatic carboxylic acids are difficult to reduce electroehemically. Reduction of a 10% oxalic acid in 10% H2SO4. at 15 °C at a mercury cathode (Refs. [494, 532] in Ref. [29]), a lead or amalgamated lead cathode (Ref. [495] in Ref. [29]) or at a sodium amalgam (Na(Hg) cathode (Ref. [497] in Ref. [29]) produces glyoxylic acid with a material yield of 88% and a current efficiency of 70%. The glyoxylic acid formed is stabilized by hydration [29]. 

A process for the direct reduction of nitrobenzene to -p-ammophenol, an important intermediate for the production of dyes, depends on the above interesting transformation. Nitrobenzene in alcoholic solution is mixed with concentrated sulphuric acid and electrolysed with a lead cathode. This process proves that phenylhydroxylamine is also an intermediate in the reduction of nitrobenzene in acid solution, as was mentioned above. Here, as a result of the rapidity of the rearrangement which takes place, it is not converted into aniline. 

Cyclization can also be effected using the solid amalgam, DMP(Hg)s, that deposits at the electrode surface when iV,N-dimethylpyrrolidinium perchlorate (DMP ) is reduced at either a mercury or a lead cathode [48,49],... 

Work by Ono et al. [66] has been specifically directed at ultrasonic control of product-selectivity in electroreductions. Using a lead cathode, in dilute methanolic sulphuric acid, at a constant current of 20 mA cm , Ono electroreduced benzaldehyde under stirred, unstirred and ultrasonic conditions (Fig. 6.17). In an unstirred system, benzyl alcohol (two-electron process) was the major product, while mechanical stirring reversed the position in favour of the hydrodimer (one-electron product). Ultrasonic irradiation from a cleaning bath (100 W, 36 kHz) so strongly favoured the hydrodimer that the alcohol was barely evident (Tab. 6.16). 

These authors, using a horn system, also noted less striking but still significant switches towards the one-electron products in other sonoelectrochemical reductions [66] including dimethylmaleate at a lead cathode in an aqueous mixed-phosphate buffer, and benzyl bromide at a lead cathode in methanolic tetraethylammonium bromide solution (Tab. 6.16). 

The reduction of benzoic acid at a lead cathode in aqueous sulphuric/citric acids yields the two-electron products benzaldehyde and the four-electron product benzyl alcohol rather than one-electron hydrodimer. In all cases studied by the authors they found that ultrasound favoured the process involving the smaller number of electrons per molecule. This is the opposite of the sonoelectrochemical effect seen in carboxylate electrooxidation [57,59,60] where the process involving the greater number of electrons was favoured by ultrasound. 

Work at Coventry has shown the same switch from a two-electron to a one-electron pathway is occuring at higher insonation frequency in that the electroreduction of benzaldehyde at 800 kHz gives almost entirely the pinacol. A major benefit of the use of the higher frequency however is that there is little weight loss of the lead cathode compared to lower frequency (20 kHz) where it is substantially abraded away. 

V-nitramines too were reduced to disubstituted hydrazines. Electrolysis in 10% sulfuric acid over copper or lead cathodes reduced AT-nitrodimethylamine to. /V,JV-dimethylhydrazine (yield 69%), 7V-nitro-JV-methylaniline to N-methyl-JV-phenylhydrazine (yield 54%), W-nitropiperidine to JV,A -penta-methylenehydrazine (yield 52%) [734], and nitrourea to semicarbazide (yield 61-69%) [755]. 

Electrolytic reduction using a lead cathode in 20% sulfuric acid converted pyridine a-carboxaldehyde to a mixture of 41% of a-picoline, 25% of a-pipecoline and 11% of 2-methyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine [443]. 

Reduction of a,/3-unsaturated to saturated ketones was further achieved by electrolysis in a neutral medium using copper or lead cathodes (yields 55-75%) [766], with lithium in propylamine (yields 40-65%) [876], with potassium-graphite clathrate CgK (yields 57-85%) [807], and with zinc in acetic acid (yield 87%) [688]. Reduction with amalgamated zinc in hydrochloric acid (Clemmensen reduction) usually reduces both functions [877]. 

High yields of amines have also been obtained by reduction of amides with an excess of magnesium aluminum hydride (yield 100%) [577], with lithium trimethoxyaluminohydride at 25° (yield 83%) [94] with sodium bis(2-methoxy-ethoxy)aluminum hydride at 80° (yield 84.5%) [544], with alane in tetra-hydrofuran at 0-25° (isolated yields 46-93%) [994, 1117], with sodium boro-hydride and triethoxyoxonium fluoroborates at room temperature (yields 81-94%) [1121], with sodium borohydride in the presence of acetic or trifluoroacetic acid on refluxing (yields 20-92.5%) [1118], with borane in tetrahydrofuran on refluxing (isolated yields 79-84%) [1119], with borane-dimethyl sulflde complex (5 mol) in tetrahydrofuran on refluxing (isolated yields 37-89%) [1064], and by electrolysis in dilute sulfuric acid at 5° using a lead cathode (yields 63-76%) [1120]. 

Reduction of lactams to amines resembles closely the reduction of amides except that catalytic hydrogenation is much easier and was accomplished even under mild conditions. a-Norlupinone (l-azabicyclo[4.4.0]-2-oxodecane) was converted quantitatively to norlupinane (l-azabicyclo[4.4.0]decane) over platinum oxide in 1.25% aqueous hydrochloric acid at room temperature and atmospheric pressure after 16 hours [1122]. Reduction of the same compound by electrolysis in 50% sulfuric acid over lead cathode gave 70% yield [1122]. 

A(-Methylsuccinimide was converted to A(-methylpyrrolidone in 92% yield on heating for 18 minutes at 100° with 3 equivalents of sodium bis(2-methoxy-ethoxy)aluminum hydride [544], and A(-phenylsuccinimide was transformed into A -phenylpyrrolidone in 67% yield by electroreduction on a lead cathode in dilute sulfuric acid [1120]. 

Phthalimide was hydrogenated catalytically at 60-80° over palladium on barium sulfate in acetic acid containing an equimolar quantity of sulfuric or perchloric acid to phthalimidine [7729]. The same compound was produced in 76-80% yield by hydrogenation over nickel at 200° and 200-250 atm [43 and in 75% yield over copper chromite at 250° and 190 atm [7730]. Reduction with lithium aluminum hydride, on the other hand, reduced both carbonyls and gave isoindoline (yield 5%) [7730], also obtained by electroreduction on a lead cathode in sulfuric acid (yield 72%) [7730]. 

The formation of dimers by reduction of a,p-unsaturated ketones in aqueous media is well documented in the early literature of electrochemistry. Reductants include sodium or aluminium amalgams [58], dissolving zinc and a lead cathode in both acid and alkaline conditions [59,60]. Mixtures of dimers and dihydro derivatives were isolated. As the concept of the hydrodimerization of activated alkenes... 

Baizer, working at the Monsanto Company, showed that good yields of adiponitrile are obtained from aqueous solutions by reduction at mercury or lead in the presence of a high concentration of quaternary ammonium salt [62]. Tetraethyl-ammonium toIuene-4-sulphonate was favoured as electrolyte. The first commercial plant operating the process was commissioned in 1965. It used a divided cell system with a lead cathode and aqueous tetraethylammonium ethylsulphate as electrolyte, with the addition of acid to regulate the pH. A lead anode with an anolyte of dilute sulphuric acid was employed. 

Mixed hydrocoupling reactions in dimethylfonnamide, containing chlorotri-methylsilane, at a lead cathode with tetrathylammonium toluene-4-sulphonate electrolyte. The aldehyde or ketone is in five-fold excess. Ref [135]. 

Yields of dichlorocyclopropanes from reaction of alkencs with dichloro-carbene generated at a lead cathode in dichloromethane containing tetxa-butylammonium bromide. Ref. [79]. 

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