Olefin hydroformylation catalyst

Rhodium Ca.ta.lysts. Rhodium carbonyl catalysts for olefin hydroformylation are more active than cobalt carbonyls and can be appHed at lower temperatures and pressures (14). Rhodium hydrocarbonyl [75506-18-2] HRh(CO)4, results in lower -butyraldehyde [123-72-8] to isobutyraldehyde [78-84-2] ratios from propylene [115-07-17, C H, than does cobalt hydrocarbonyl, ie, 50/50 vs 80/20. Ligand-modified rhodium catalysts, HRh(CO)2L2 or HRh(CO)L2, afford /iso-ratios as high as 92/8 the ligand is generally a tertiary phosphine. The rhodium catalyst process was developed joindy by Union Carbide Chemicals, Johnson-Matthey, and Davy Powergas and has been Hcensed to several companies. It is particulady suited to propylene conversion to -butyraldehyde for 2-ethylhexanol production in that by-product isobutyraldehyde is minimized. 

Conventional triorganophosphite ligands, such as triphenylphosphite, form highly active hydroformylation catalysts (95—99) however, they suffer from poor durabiUty because of decomposition. Diorganophosphite-modified rhodium catalysts (94,100,101), have overcome this stabiUty deficiency and provide a low pressure, rhodium catalyzed process for the hydroformylation of low reactivity olefins, thus making lower cost amyl alcohols from butenes readily accessible. The new diorganophosphite-modified rhodium catalysts increase hydroformylation rates by more than 100 times and provide selectivities not available with standard phosphine catalysts. For example, hydroformylation of 2-butene with l,l -biphenyl-2,2 -diyl... 

The switch from the conventional cobalt complex catalyst to a new rhodium-based catalyst represents a technical advance for producing aldehydes by olefin hydroformylation with CO, ie, by the oxo process (qv) (82). A 200 t/yr CSTR pilot plant provided scale-up data for the first industrial,... 

Polymer-supported catalysts incorporating organometaUic complexes also behave in much the same way as their soluble analogues (28). Extensive research has been done in attempts to develop supported rhodium complex catalysts for olefin hydroformylation and methanol carbonylation, but the effort has not been commercially successful. The difficulty is that the polymer-supported catalysts are not sufftciendy stable the valuable metal is continuously leached into the product stream (28). Consequendy, the soHd catalysts fail to eliminate the problems of corrosion and catalyst recovery and recycle that are characteristic of solution catalysis. 

The positively charged phosphonium ligand was intercalated in the hectorite and was used to catalyze olefin hydroformylation.156 Cu(II)-exchanged clays were tested as catalysts in the cyclopropanation reaction of styrene with... 

Rhodium and cobalt carbonyls have long been known as thermally active hydroformylation catalysts. With thermal activation alone, however, they require higher temperatures and pressures than in the photocatalytic reaction. Iron carbonyl, on the other hand, is a poor hydroformylation catalyst at all temperatures under thermal activation. When irradiated under synthesis gas at 100 atm, the iron carbonyl catalyzes the hydroformylation of terminal olefins even at room temperatures, as was first discovered by P. Krusic. ESR studies suggested the formation of HFe9(C0) radicals as the active catalyst, /25, 26/. Our own results support this idea, 111,28/. Light is necessary to start the hydroformylation of 1-octene with the iron carbonyl catalyst. Once initiated, the reaction proceeds even in the... 

Olefin-hydroformylation on Cobalt-FT-catalysts in 1938 Head of Research at the Ruhrchemie company until 1962 Early co-worker of Franz Fischer... 

With a water-soluble hydroformylation catalyst the overwhelming majority of the reactions take place in an aqueous/organic biphasic mixture for the simple reason of most olefins being insoluble in water. Research in aqueous organometallic hydroformylation is therefore directed to several aims ... 

Another possible reason that ethylene glycol is not produced by this system could be that the hydroxymethyl complex of (51) and (52) may undergo preferential reductive elimination to methanol, (52), rather than CO insertion, (51). However, CO insertion appears to take place in the formation of methyl formate, (53), where a similar insertion-reductive elimination branch appears to be involved. Insertion of CO should be much more favorable for the hydroxymethyl complex than for the methoxy complex (67, 83). Further, ruthenium carbonyl complexes are known to hydro-formylate olefins under conditions similar to those used in these CO hydrogenation reactions (183, 184). Based on the studies of equilibrium (46) previously described, a mononuclear catalyst and ruthenium hydride alkyl intermediate analogous to the hydroxymethyl complex of (51) seem probable. In such reactions, hydroformylation is achieved by CO insertion, and olefin hydrogenation is the result of competitive reductive elimination. The results reported for these reactions show that olefin hydroformylation predominates over hydrogenation, indicating that the CO insertion process of (51) should be quite competitive with the reductive elimination reaction of (52). 

Both the rhodium and the cobalt complexes catalyze olefin isomerization as well as olefin hydroformylation. In the case of the rhodium(I) catalysts, the amount of isomerization decreases as the ligands are altered in the order CO > NR3 > S > PR3. When homogeneous and supported amine-rhodium complexes were compared, it was found that they both gave similar amounts of isomerization, whereas with the tertiary phosphine complexes the supported catalysts gave rather less olefin isomerization than their homogeneous counterparts (44, 45). 

III,C, isomerization often accompanies hydroformylation. It has, however, been found that [(PhCN)2PdCl2] absorbed onto silica gel is 100 times more active for the isomerization of a-olefins, such as 1-heptene, than is the same complex alone (116). This implies some specific role for the silica gel. Attempts to use rhodium(III) chloride absorbed onto silica gel, alumina, activated charcoal, and diatomaceous earth as a-olefin isomerization catalysts showed that all these catalysts were unstable even at room temperature (100). 

OXO PROCESS. The oxo process, also known as hydroformylation. is the reaction of carbon monoxide and hydrogen with an olefinic substrate to form isometric aldehydes as shown in equation I. The ratio of isomeric aldehydes depends on the olefin, the catalyst, and the reaction conditions. 

Applying P-31 NMR to the field of hydroformylation catalysis by triphenylphosphine rhodium complex-based systems is the subject of this chapter. These hydroformylation catalyst systems are of high academic and technological interest. They are effective for hydroformylat-ing 1-olefins at low pressure and temperature and exhibit a high selectivity to n-aldehydes ... 

Since the 1-olefin concentration-dependent hydroformylation in the presence of the above catalyst system has a slightly higher activation energy of about 22 kcal mol-1, it is proposed that the ratedetermining step of selective terminal 1-olefin hydroformylation may involve a transition state leading to the formation of a 1-alkyl bis-(trans-phosphine)rhodium carbonyl hydride complex rather than the dissociation of the trisphosphine complex. 

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