NAPS Using a Non-Polar Catalyst

A major breakthrough in separation of products from catalyst, in particular heat sensitive products, came with the discovery of the NAPS or Non-Aqueous Phase Separation technology. NAPS provides the opportunity to separate less volatile and/or thermally labile products. It is amenable to the separation of both polar [14] and non-polar [15] products, and it offers the opportunity to use a very much wider array of ligands and separation solvents than prior-art phase separation processes. The phase distribution characteristics of the ligand can be tuned for the process. Two immiscible solvents are 

Whereas ligand selection for the biphasic water-organic and the induced phase separation system are somewhat limited, there is very wide array of organophosphorus 

5 Hypothetical processes - How might the Product be separated from the Catalyst  

In order to see how a product forming process might be coupled with a separation technology, we shall consider a matrix of processes and separations. 

For homogeneous precious metal catalyzed processes, there are four major considerations. They are speed (or rate), selectivity, stability and separation. Of these four, speed is the most important since if you can obtain a high or very high reaction rate, you can use the flexibility that high rate provides by, for example, reducing reaction temperature and thereby slowing some byproduct forming reactions. 

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