Palladium -ethylene oxidation

Another attractive commercial route to MEK is via direct oxidation of / -butenes (34—39) in a reaction analogous to the Wacker-Hoechst process for acetaldehyde production via ethylene oxidation. In the Wacker-Hoechst process the oxidation of olefins is conducted in an aqueous solution containing palladium and copper chlorides. However, unlike acetaldehyde production, / -butene oxidation has not proved commercially successflil because chlorinated butanones and butyraldehyde by-products form which both reduce yields and compHcate product purification, and also because titanium-lined equipment is required to withstand chloride corrosion. 

Silver-containing catalysts are used exclusively in all commercial ethylene oxide units, although the catalyst composition may vary considerably (129). Nonsdver-based catalysts such as platinum, palladium, chromium, nickel, cobalt, copper ketenide, gold, thorium, and antimony have been investigated, but are only of academic interest (98,130—135). Catalysts using any of the above metals either have very poor selectivities for ethylene oxide production at the conversion levels required for commercial operation, or combust ethylene completely at useful operating temperatures. 

Compared with these methods, the palladium-catalyzed oxidation of 1-olefins described here is more convenient and practical. The industrial method of ethylene oxidation to acetaldehyde using PdCl2-CuCl 2-O2 original reaction of this type. The oxidation of various olefins has been carried out. ... 

Alternatively, it may be possible to demonstrate for the pure metals that the catalytic activity is independent of film weight in a certain weight range. For example, rates of ethylene oxidation were constant over pure palladium films, deposited and annealed at 400°C and weighing between 4 and 40 mg (73). Then, if electron micrographs show that the crystallite size is relatively independent of composition, a satisfactory comparison of catalytic activity can be made at the various alloy compositions. Finally, surface area measurements are less urgently needed when activity varies by orders of magnitude, or where the main interest lies outside the determination of absolute reaction rates. 

It is tempting to associate directly the absence of ethylene oxide over catalysts with more than 40% Pd with the appearance of holes in the d-band. It could be assumed that ethylene is chemisorbed directly on Pd-rich alloys and rapidly decomposed, whereas on Ag-rich alloys ethylene is only adsorbed on top of an oxygen-covered surface leading to selective oxidation. However, the general conclusion from earlier kinetic studies (143) is that the rate-determining step over pure palladium also involves the latter mode of ethylene chemisorption. 

Palladium-catalyzed oxidation of hydrocarbons has been a matter of intense research for about four decades. The field was initiated by the development of the aerobic oxidation of ethylene to acetaldehyde catalyzed by palladium chloride and co-catalyzed by cupric chloride (the Wacker process, equation l)1. 

Poly(ethylene oxide) polymers and poly(ethylene oxide/propylene oxide) copolymers with iminodipropionitrile (139) or iminodiacetonitrile end groups were used as ligands in the palladium-catalyzed oxidation of higher olefins (1-octene to 1-hexadecene) at 50-70 °C with atmospheric air or 1-3 bar O2. In an ethanol/water mixture 88 % yield of 2-hexanone and 92 % yield of 2-hexadecanone was obtained in 4 and 2 h, respectively, with a... 

A stereospecific synthesis for cw-3-hexen-l-ol starts with the ethylation of sodium acetylide to 1 -butyne, which is reacted with ethylene oxide to give 3-hexyn-l-ol. Selective hydrogenation of the triple bond in the presence of palladium catalysts yields cw-3-hexen-l-ol. Biotechnological processes have been developed for its synthesis as a natural flavor compound, e.g., [12]. 

Two selective processes are important in the oxidation of ethylene the production of ethylene oxide and acetaldehyde. The first process is specifically catalyzed by silver, the second one by palladium-based catalysts. Silver catalysts are unique and selective for the oxidation of ethylene. No similar situation exists for higher olefins. The effect of palladium catalysts shows a resemblance to the liquid phase oxidation of ethylene in the Wacker process, in which Pd—C2H4 coordination complexes are involved. The high selectivity of the liquid phase process (95%), however, is not matched by the gas phase route at present. 

There have been used essentially only three catalysts foi the hydrogenation of ethylene oxides nickel, palladium on charcoal, and platinum black. Solvent normally employed include ethanol wait nickel, and ethanol, ethyl acetate, or acetic acid with the other. Reduction over platinum or palladium catalysts is usually conducted at room temperature and low pressure, whereas nickel catalysth Imvi-been employed in autoclaves at temperatures ranging from 3fT to nearly 200° and high pressures. For excellent general discussions ol catalytic redaction any of several outstanding sources14" 11-ltni m.i> be consulted. 

The most common oxidation state of palladium is H-2 which corresponds toa electronic configuration. Compounds have square planar geometry. Other important oxidation states and electronic configurations include 0 ( °), which can have coordination numbers ranging from two to four and is important in catalytic chemistry, and +4 (eft), which is octahedral and much more strongly oxidizing than platinum (IV). The chemistry of palladium is similar to that of platinum, but palladium is between 103 to 5 x 10s more labile (192). A primary industrial application is palladium-catalyzed oxidation of ethylene (see Olefin polymers) to acetaldehyde (qv). Palladium-catalyzed carbon—carbon bond formation is an important organic reaction. 

Compensation effects have been reported for the oxidation of ethylene on Pd-Ru and on Pd-Ag alloys (207, 254, 255) discussion of the activity patterns for these catalysts includes consideration of the influence of hydrogen dissolved in the metal on the occupancy of energy bands. Arrhenius parameters reported (208) for ethylene oxidation on Pd-Au alloys were an appreciable distance from the line calculated for oxidation reactions on palladium and platinum metals (Table III, H). Oxidation of carbon monoxide on Pd-Au alloys also exhibits a compensation effect (256). 

We do not know if the vinylic alcohol is actually an intermediate or whether a hydride-71 complex of it rearranges directly to the aldehyde as probably happens in the palladium-catalyzed oxidation of ethylene to acetaldehyde. The formation of 4% 2-methyl-2-phenylpropanal is unexpected. This product must arise from a reversed addition of the phenylpalladium group followed by a hydrogen transfer from the hydroxyl-bearing carbon to the palladium, followed by reductive elimination of a hydridopalladium group. An alkyoxypalladium intermediate has been proposed (39). 

Another example is the palladium-catalyzed oxidation of ethylene to acetaldehyde in the presence of oxygen and cupric salts, the so-called Wacker reaction. This catalytic cycle combines two stoichiometric processes, which involve first the reduction of Pd11 to Pd°, followed by reoxidation with Cu11. The understanding of the first step of this process came from the earlier work of Kharasch et al., who showed that the stoichiometric dinuclear complex shown in Figure 2.14 decomposed in the presence of water to acetaldehyde (ethanal), Pd° and HC1 [38]. 

The reaction achieved considerable attention over the years, and various alterations have been reported. Behr also reported the combination of carbon dioxide, butadiene and ethylene oxide to give the hydroxyester of the acids depicted in Scheme 19. A nickel-catalyzed analogous system using triphenylphosphine or triisopropylphosphite takes a different route as cyclopentanecarboxylic acids are reported as the main product [126]. A palladium catalyst immobilized on a phosphine-decorated polystyrene polymer [127] or on silica also proved to be active [128]. 

The aqueous palladium chloride oxidation of ethylene to acetaldehyde has been developed into an important commercial process. The discovery of how to make the reaction catalytic with respect to palladium chloride was, perhaps, as important to the process as the discovery of the oxidation reaction itself. This process known as the Wacker-Process, employs cupric chloride as a catalyst for the oxygen (air) reoxidation of... 

Vinyl ethers can be obtained from ethylene and alcohols with palladium chloride 7> by a mechanism that is probably very similar to that in the ethylene oxidation to acetaldehyde. 

In this bicyclic case the palladium and methoxyl groups are trans to each other 1X>. A cis stereochemistry would have been expected on the basis of the ethylene oxidation mechanism. Trans-addition, however, is unusually favorable in the bicyclic examples. Although addition to the exo positions is generally strongly preferred, it cannot occur here if the favorable chelating effect of the second double bond is to be obtained. As a result, only the solvent methanol can attack from the exo side. The endo cis adduct has not been prepared and it conceivably could rearrange to the trans isomer even if it were formed initially. Clearly, more work needs to be done on the stereochemistry of the addition reactions. 

Ceramic and semiconductor thin films have been prepared by a number of methods including chemical vapor deposition (CVD), spray-coating, and sol-gel techniques. In the present work, the sol-gel method was chosen to prepare uniform, thin films of titanium oxides on palladium Titanium oxide was chosen because of its versatility as a support material and also because the sol-gel synthesis of titania films has been clearly described by Takahashi and co-workers (22). The procedure utilized herein follows the work of Takahashi, but is modified to take advantage of the hydrogen permeability of the palladium substrate. Our objective was to develop a reliable procedure for the fabrication of thin titania films on palladium, and then to evaluate the performance of the resulting metalloceramic membranes for hydrogen transport and ethylene hydrogenation for comparison to the pure palladium membrane results. 

The palladium-catalyzed oxidation of ethylene to acetaldehyde (the Wacker process) was discovered by Smidt and co-workers514-518 in 1959. This process combines the stoichiometric reduction of Pd(II) with reoxidation of metal in situ by molecular oxygen in the presence of copper salts. The overall reaction constitutes a palladium-catalyzed oxidation of ethylene to acetaldehyde by molecular oxygen ... 

The first set of reactions is the mainstay of the petrochemical industry 1 outstanding examples are the oxidation of propene to propenal (acrolein) catalysed by bismuth molybdate, and of ethene to oxirane (ethylene oxide) catalysed by silver. In general these processes work at high but not perfect selectivity, the catalysts having been fine-tuned by inclusion of promoters to secure optimum performance. An especially important reaction is the oxidation of ethene in the presence of acetic (ethanoic) acid to form vinyl acetate (ethenyl ethanoate) catalysed by supported palladium-gold catalysts this is treated in Section 8.4. Oxidation reactions are very exothermic, and special precautions have to be taken to avoid the catalyst over-heating. 

Figure 28 shows that the chemistry involved in the Wacker process could in principle be extended to other nucleophiles. The modern catalytic manufacturing process making vinyl acetate from ethylene and acetic acid is based on the observation that palladium catalyzed oxidation of ethylene to acetaldehyde can be converted into an acetoxylation reaction if carried out in a solution of acetic acid and in the presence of sodium acetate (Equation 42). 

Tlie mechanistic approach to the direct syntheses of oxalates is that which has been well established for the ethylene oxidation to acetaldehyde, the so called Wackcr process. We have, first of all, activation of the substrate by coordination, followed by an electron transfer to the metal (which in this case produces the formation of a carbon to carbon bond). The first important effect, therefore, is the activation of carbon monoxide by coordination to palladium. 

Ethylene (tert-phosphine) complexes of zero-valent nickeP and platinum have been known for years. Analogous palladium complexes can be synthesized along the same lines as those reported for the nickel compounds, using ethoxy-diethylaluminum(III) as the reducing agent in the presence of ethylene. These palladium-ethylene complexes may serve as starting materials for oxidative addition reactions, since the ethylene ligand is loosely bonded. ... 

Al-Shammary A.F.Y., Caga I.T., Winterbottom J.M., Tata A.Y. and Harris I.R., Palladium based diffusion membranes as catalysts in ethylene oxidation, J. Chem. Technol. Biotechnol. 52.571 (1991). 

Among the several types of homogeneously catalyzed reactions, oxidation is perhaps the most relevant and applicable to chemical industry. The well-known Wacker oxidation of ethylene to ethylene oxide is the classic example, although this is not a true catalytic process since the palladium (II) ion becomes reduced to metallic palladium unless an oxygen carrier is present. Related to this is the commercial reaction of ethylene and acetic acid to form vinyl acetate, although the mechanism of this reaction does not seem to have yet been discussed publicly. Attempts to achieve selective oxidation of olefins or hydrocarbons heterogeneously do not seem very successful. 

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