Olefin metathesis pentenes

Further important industrial applications of olefin metathesis include the synthesis of 3,3-dimethyl-l-butene ( neohexene , intermediate for the production of musk perfume) from ethene and 2,4,4-trimethyl-2-pentene, the manufacture of a,co-dienes from ethene and cycloalkenes (reversed RCM), and the ROMP of cyclooctene and norbomene to Vestenamer and Norsorex , respectively. 

In die last 10 years or so an exciting new strategy has emerged for the formation of carbon-carbon double bonds, namely olefin metathesis. This work grew out of the development of Ziegler-Natta catalysts for die polymerizarion of cyclic olefins. It was found that when 2-pentene was treated with a catalyst prepared from tungsten hexachloride and ethylaluminum dichloride, a mixture of 2-pentene, 2-butene, and 3-hexene was produced in minutes at room temperature (rt) ... 

In 1967, Calderon, Chen, and Scott4) reported a homogeneous catalyst system comprised of tungsten hexachloride, ethanol, and ethylaluminum dichloride would disproportionate internal olefins. These authors used the term olefin metathesis to describe the reaction. At room temperature 2-pentene was transformed in one to three minutes into a mixture containing, at equilibrium, 25, 50, and 25 mole per cent of 2-butene, 2-pentene, and 3-hexene, respectively. Double-bond isomerization was not detected and a quantitative reaction selectivity was obtained. Additional reports by Calderon and cowor-... 

The olefin metathesis system is used, with the physical properties and reaction kinetics being taken from the literature (Okasinski and Doherty 1998). The reaction is considered only to occur in the liquid phase with a negligible heat of reaction and ideal vapor-liquid equilibrium behavior at atmospheric pressure. The specifications for column operation are taken from Hoffmaster and Hauan (2006). The goal is to convert a pure pentene feed into product streams of butene and hexene with a purity of at least 98 mole percent using a feed flow of 2 kmol/h and a distillate to feed ratio of 0.5. 

Olefin metathesis. Tungsten hexachloride with C2H5A1C122 or n-butyllithium3 as cocatalyst has been used for olefin metathesis. Lithium aluminum hydride has been shown to be an effective cocatalyst and has the merit of availability and stability to air.4 Thus treatment of heptene-3 in chlorobenzene with WCl6-LiAlH4 for 3 hr. yields heptene-3 (39%), octenc-4 (23%), and hexene-3 (18.5%). A nonene, a pentene, and a butene were also formed in 10% yield. 

In the field of fine chemistry, the Phillips neohexene process was an early commercial application of olefin metathesis [20]. Neohexene (3,3-dimethyl-l-butene) is an important intermediate in the synthesis of musk perfume. The Phillips neohexene process is based on ethenolysis of an isobutene dimer consisting of a mixture of 2,4,4-trimethyl-2-pentene and 2,4,4-trimethyl-1-pentene. Ethenolysis of the former yields the desired product (Eq. 6). 

A case in which 77-coordination of olefins to metallic complexes plays a decisive part is the remarkable reaction called olefin metathesis. Calderon, Chen, and Scott reported the reaction in which two olefinic bonds are broken and two new olefinic bonds are formed via a four-membered ring is. 5 ). For example, 2-pentene is converted into 3-hexene and 2-butene. 

Olefin metathesis. Irradiation of trans-2-pentene and tungsten hexacarbonyl in carbon tetrachloride gives 2-butene and 3-hexene (both mainly in the trans-form). No metathesis is observed when CCI4 is replaced by n-hexane. 

The kinetics of the olefin metathesis of 2-pentene by (pyri-dine)2Mo(NO)2Cl2 and organoaluminum halides have been measured (56) as first order in the metal and variable order in olefin (seemingly first order at high olefin concentration and up to order 1.7 at low olefin concentration) and were originally interpreted to support the conventional mechanism, but they now also seem in accord with the metal-carbene chain mechanism. 

The opposite isomer, tra i-2-pentene, under the same conditions gives butenes and hexenes that have largely the opposite stereochemistry, but the stereoselectivity is considerably less than that of the cis-olefin metathesis the butene is only 73% trans and the hexene 83% trans. 

When metathesis is effected with tra i-2-pentene, rather than cis-, and (diphenylcarbene)pentacarbonyltungsten is the initiator, the 2-butene and 2-hexene products are largely trans. The stereospecificity (73-83% trans) is not as great as for cw-olefin metathesis, but it is appreciable (63). The ratios of the stereoisomers in the products are close to the equilibrium ratios, but they probably are not determined by the products equilibrating, for in the short time the metathesis was run to determine the stereochemistry of the initial product, the precursor, tranj-2-pentene, underwent only negligible isomerization. The stereochemistries therefore are determined by the kinetics, which in turn should be affected by conformational factors similar to those in Scheme... 

Metallacycles have been suggested as intermediates in many transition-metal catalyzed reactions of olefins, acetylenes, and cyclopropanes. Metallacyclobutane complexes are invoked in olefin and cyclopropane isomerization schemes (Scheme as well as in olefin metathesis schemes. Metallacyclopentane, -pentene, and -pentadiene complexes can all be invoked in olefin and acetylene dimerization and polymerization (Scheme Many of these involve early transition metals and do not include phosphine ligands. 

The term of alkene (olefin) metathesis was introduced by Calderon and coworkers in 1967 [13] to describe a reaction in which 2-pentene is converted to 2-butene and 3-hexene in the presence of tungsten hexachloride, ethanol, and ethyl aluminum dichloride (Scheme 6.1). Nowadays, this term covers all reactions associated with the exchange of carbene (alkylidene) groups between alkenes, and the reaction has become a key process in polymer chemistry, as well as in fine and basic chemical synthesis, including petrochemistry [14, 15]. Alkene metathesis only takes place in the presence of an appropriate catalyst, and considerable research efforts have been devoted to design more active, selective, and stable catalysts [16-24]. In this field, computational chemistry has contributed considerably by bringing information that could not be derived from experimental studies. 

As the scope of the reaction increased, the name Olefin Metathesis was introduced by Goodyear, who also pioneered the use of homogeneous catalysts. The reaction had first been recognized during experiments on the development of a heterogeneous catalyst to replace mineral acids in alkylation reactions. Molybdenum hexacarbonyl catalyst supported on alumina produced 2-pentene (40%) from mixed n-butenes together with propylene (51%) and hexene (9%). Tungsten hexacarbonyl was less active than the molybdenum catalyst, and in total contrast, it was found that chromium hexacarbonyl acted as a polymerization catalyst. 

In this process, which has been jointly developed by Institute Francais du Petrole and Chinese Petroleum Corp., the C4 feed is mainly composed of 2-butene (1-butene does not favor this reaction but reacts differently with olefins, producing metathetic by-products). The reaction between 1-butene and 2-butene, for example, produces 2-pentene and propylene. The amount of 2-pentene depends on the ratio of 1-butene in the feedstock. 3-Hexene is also a by-product from the reaction of two butene molecules (ethylene is also formed during this reaction). The properties of the feed to metathesis are shown in Table 9-1. Table 9-2 illustrates the results from the metatheses reaction at two different conversions. The main by-product was 2-pentene. Olefins in the range of Ce-Cg and higher were present, but to a much lower extent than C5. 

Soluble metathesis catalysts yield trans products in reactions with // / v-2-pentene, but generally are not very stereospecific with c/.v-2-pen-tene. In the latter case, the initially formed butenes and hexenes are typically about 60 and 50% cis, respectively. Basset noted (19) that widely diverse catalyst systems behaved similarily, and so it was suggested that the ligand composition about the transition metal was not a significant factor in the steric course of these reactions. Subsequently, various schemes to portray the stereochemistry have been proposed which deal only with interactions involving alkyl substituents on the reacting olefin or on the presumed metallocyclobutane intermediate. 

Fortunately, steric control arising from interactions of alkyl moieties derived from reacting olefins can be enhanced and observed by selection of appropriate reactants. This effect was demonstrated in the work of Lawrence and Ofstead (76), who studied the metathesis of 4-methyl-2-pentene induced by a WCl6Et2OBu4Sn catalyst. This catalyst is not particularly unique, for the steric course of the metathesis of m-2-pen-tene with this system was found to be essentially equivalent to that previously observed (18) with a conventional catalyst employing an or-ganoaluminum cocatalyst. 

A second observation was the fact that isomerization of the starting asymmetric olefin was much faster than the formation of new symmetric olefins. In fact, 40% of the initial cis olefin (Fig. 1) had isomerized to trans after only 4% conversion to new olefins. This result formally parallels the highly selective regenerative metathesis of a-olefins (60, 61), except that steric factors now prevail, because electronic effects should be minimal. Finally, the composition of the initially formed butene from r/j-4-methyl-2-pentene was essentially identical to that obtained when cA-2-pentene was used (18). When tra .v-4-methyl-2-pentene was metath-esized (Fig. 2), the composition of the initially formed butenes indicated a rather high trans specificity. 

From a consideration of data provided in studies limited to the metathesis of 2-pentene, several views of the stereochemistry have been recently advanced. For the most part, they deal only with steric influences caused by alkyl groups coming from the reacting olefin. 

The isomerization of light olefins is usually carried out to convert -butenes to isobutylene [12] with the most frequently studied zeolite for this operation being PER [30]. Lyondell s IsomPlus process uses a PER catalyst to convert -butenes to isobutylene or n-pentenes to isopentene [31]. Processes such as this were in larger demand to generate isobutene before the phaseout of MTBE as a gasoline additive. Since the phaseout, these processes often perform the reverse reaction to convert isobutene to n-butenes which are then used as a metathesis feed [32]. As doublebond isomerization is much easier than skeletal isomerization, most of the catalysts below are at equilibrium ratios of the n-olefins as the skeletal isomerization begins (Table 12.5). 

The reaction is called metathesis of olefins.557 In the example shown above, 2-pentene (either cis, trans, or a cis-trans mixture) is converted to a mixture of about 50% 2-pentene, 25% 2-butene, and 25% 3-hexene. The reaction is an equilibrium and the same mixture can be obtained by starting with equimolar quantities of 2-butene and 3-hexene.558 In general, the... 

W(OAr)2Cl4 [C4Ciim]Cl-AlCl3- Cross-metathesis of linear olefins, e.g. conversion of 1-pentene to form ethylene and Et AlCl . . , , 4-octene no reaction details given system active tor several runs [22]... 

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