Olefins, selective hydrogenation

One important application of selective hydrogenation of alkynes is their removal from the industrial steam cracker products. These can contain several percents of alkynes as byproducts. They are particularly unwelcome in that they poison the catalysts used for the downstream polymerization of the olefins. Selective hydrogenation of these steam cracker cuts has two advantages. It removes acetylenes and converts them to desired alkenes, thereby increasing the overall yields (see Section 11.6.1). 

Finally, selective hydrogenation of the olefinic bond in mesityl oxide is conducted over a fixed-bed catalyst in either the Hquid or vapor phase. In the hquid phase the reaction takes place at 150°C and 0.69 MPa, in the vapor phase the reaction can be conducted at atmospheric pressure and temperatures of 150—170°C. The reaction is highly exothermic and yields 8.37 kJ/mol (65). To prevent temperature mnaways and obtain high selectivity, the conversion per pass is limited in the Hquid phase, and in the vapor phase inert gases often are used to dilute the reactants. The catalysts employed in both vapor- and Hquid-phase processes include nickel (66—76), palladium (77—79), copper (80,81), and rhodium hydride complexes (82). Complete conversion of mesityl oxide can be obtained at selectivities of 95—98%. 

HP Alkylation Process. The most widely used technology today is based on the HE catalyst system. AH industrial units built in the free world since 1970 employ this process (78). During the mid-1960s, commercial processes were developed to selectively dehydrogenate linear paraffins to linear internal olefins (79—81). Although these linear internal olefins are of lower purity than are a olefins, they are more cost-effective because they cost less to produce. Furthermore, with improvement over the years in dehydrogenation catalysts and processes, such as selective hydrogenation of diolefins to monoolefins (82,83), the quaUty of linear internal olefins has improved. 

Selective hydrogenation of the carboxyl or ester group in preference to the olefinic unsaturation also produces unsaturated alcohols. 

Significant quantities of Cj and C, acetylenes are produced in cracking. They can be converted to olefins and paraffins. For the production of high purity ethylene and propylene, the contained Cj and C3 acetylenes and dienes are catalytically hydrogenated leaving only parts per million of acetylenes in the products. Careful operation is required to selectively hydrogenate the small concentrations of acetylenes only, and not downgrade too much of the wanted olefin products to saturates. 

Many workers (5,6,7,87) have compared various metals for the selective hydrogenation of lower acetylenes to olefins, and it was always found that palladium was by far the most selective. This conclusion concurs with the usual synthetic experience, but under special circumstances other metals, such as platinum, may prove more useful (35,63). The catalyst support may also have an influence (21,65). Carbon, calcium carbonate, and barium sulfate are frequently used supports. Examples of some differences are noted later,... 

In the petrochemical field, hydrogen is used to hydrogenate benzene to cyclohexane and benzoic acid to cyclohexane carboxylic acid. These compounds are precursors for nylon production (Chapter 10). It is also used to selectively hydrogenate acetylene from C4 olefin mixture. 

FCC after removal of C5 olefins via selective hydrogenation step passes to the isomerization unit. It has been proposed that after the formation of a hutyl carhocation, a cyclopropyl carhocation is formed which gives a primary carhenium ion that produces isobutene ... 

The observation that addition of imidazoles and carboxylic acids significantly improved the epoxidation reaction resulted in the development of Mn-porphyrin complexes containing these groups covalently linked to the porphyrin platform as attached pendant arms (11) [63]. When these catalysts were employed in the epoxidation of simple olefins with hydrogen peroxide, enhanced oxidation rates were obtained in combination with perfect product selectivity (Table 6.6, Entry 3). In contrast with epoxidations catalyzed by other metals, the Mn-porphyrin system yields products with scrambled stereochemistry the epoxidation of cis-stilbene with Mn(TPP)Cl (TPP = tetraphenylporphyrin) and iodosylbenzene, for example, generated cis- and trans-stilbene oxide in a ratio of 35 65. The low stereospecificity was improved by use of heterocyclic additives such as pyridines or imidazoles. The epoxidation system, with hydrogen peroxide as terminal oxidant, was reported to be stereospecific for ris-olefins, whereas trans-olefins are poor substrates with these catalysts. 

The LAB production process (process 1) is mainly developed and licensed by UOP. The N-paraffins are partially converted to internal /z-olefins by a catalytic dehydrogenation. The resulting mixture of /z-paraffins and n-olefins is selectively hydrogenated to reduce diolefins and then fed into an alkylation reactor, together with an excess benzene and with concentrated hydrofluoric acid (HF) which acts as the catalyst in a Friedel-Crafts reaction. In successive sections of the plant the HF, benzene, and unconverted /z-paraffins are recovered and recycled to the previous reaction stages. In the final stage of distillation, the LAB is separated from the heavy alkylates. 

Crabtree s catalyst is an efficient catalyst precursor for the selective hydrogenation of olefin resident within nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR). Its activity is favorably comparable to those of other catalyst systems used for this process. Under the conditions studied the process is essentially first order with respect to [Ir] and hydrogen pressure, implying that the active complex is mononuclear. Nitrile reduces the catalyst activity, by coordination to the metal center. At higher reaction pressures a tendency towards zero order behavior with respect to catalyst concentration was noted. This indicated the likelihood of further complexity in the system which can lead to possible formation of a multinuclear complex that causes loss of catalyst activity. 

Thus, [HRh(C0)(TPPTS)3]/H20/silica (TPPTS = sodium salt of tri(m-sulfophenyl)phopshine) catalyzes the hydroformylation of heavy and functionalized olefins,118-122 the selective hydrogenation of a,/3-unsaturated aldehydes,84 and the asymmetric hydrogenation of 2-(6 -methoxy-2 -naphthyl)acrylic add (a precursor of naproxen).123,124 More recently, this methodology was tested for the palladium-catalyzed Trost Tsuji (allylic substitution) and Heck (olefin arylation) reactions.125-127... 

The very unusual selective hydrogenation of ,/3-unsaturated aldehydes to the unsaturated alcohols, Eq. (30), has been accomplished using [RhCl(CO)2]2 in the presence of tertiary amines under oxo conditions (162). RhCl(PPh3)3 systems under similar conditions reduce the olefinic bond (162), as do Co2(CO)8 systems in the presence of amines or phosphites (163). Further details on the versatile Rh(BH4)(amide)py2Cl2 systems (/, p. 280) have appeared (164, 165) ketones are also slowly hydrogenated (166), and 1,5,9-cyclododecatriene has been selectively reduced to cyclododecene (167). 

The cyclooctene dimer [IrCl(C8H]4)2] can selectively hydrogenate cy-clooctene in mixtures with hex-l-ene, and an unsaturate route [Eq. 1(b)] via a monomeric olefin complex was demonstrated (181). The pentamethylcyclopentadienyl dimer was mentioned at the end of Section II, B, 2. 

Hydrisom A selective hydrogenation process offered by Phillips Petroleum. It is used in Argentina to upgrade C4 olefins before alkylation. 

Alkynes are hydrogenated to cis olefins with the same catalytic systems, and subsequently undergo hydrogenation to yield the corresponding alkanes [7, 42, 45, 47, 49, 59, 93]. For example, Jordan et al. reported the selective hydrogenation of 3-hexyne into cis 3-hexene with a TOF of 25 IT1 [25], and cis 3-hexene is... 

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