Union carbide patents

DuPont had been granted rights to grant non-exclusive sub-licences of the ICI Patents. Union Carbide approached DuPont in October 1942 for a sub-licence, whilst simultaneously contracting to supply the Navy with PE, building a 500-ton PE plant, and then improving the process and product. By the end of the war. Union Carbide had increased their capacity to six times that of DuPont, who were now making 750 tons per annum. Applications were found in extmded film, coated paper, wire and cable insulation, bottles, and pipes. 

The one-step route from 2-propanol coproduces diisobutyl ketone and acetone, and is practiced in the United States by Union Carbide (61). The details of a vapor-phase 2-propanol dehydrogenation and condensation process for the production of acetone, MIBK, and higher ketones have been described in recent patents (62,63). The process converts an a2eotropic 2-propanol—water feed over a copper-based catalyst at 220°C and produces a product mixture containing 2-propanol (11.4%), acetone (52.4%), MIBK (21.6%), diisobutyl ketone (6.5%), and 4-methyl-2-pentanol (2.2%). 

Ethylene oxide (qv) was once produced by the chlorohydrin process, but this process was slowly abandoned starting in 1937 when Union Carbide Corp. developed and commercialized the silver-catalyzed air oxidation of ethylene process patented in 1931 (67). Union Carbide Corp. is stiU. the world s largest ethylene oxide producer, but most other manufacturers Hcense either the Shell or Scientific Design process. Shell has the dominant patent position in ethylene oxide catalysts, which is the result of the development of highly effective methods of silver deposition on alumina (29), and the discovery of the importance of estabUshing precise parts per million levels of the higher alkaU metal elements on the catalyst surface (68). The most recent patents describe the addition of trace amounts of rhenium and various Group (VI) elements (69). 

Union Carbide introduced the first commercial polyarylsulfone resin, Udel, in 1966 and later introduced Radel polyarylsulfone. The business and patents rights were acquired by Amoco Corp. in 1986. Other polysulfone products have been marketed by BASF and ICl (Victrex PES) the latter aimounced in 1991 it was withdrawing from the business. 

Arsenic-Catalyzed Liquid-Phase Process. An arsenic catalyst Liquid-phase process for olefin oxides has been patented by Union Carbide... 

In 1960 the author was charged with the review and improvement of the ethylene oxide technology of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC). A historic overv iew revealed some interesting facts. The basic French patent of Lefort (1931,1935) for ethylene oxide production was purchased by UCC in 1936. In 1937, a pilot-plant was operated and commercial production started in 1938. By 1960, UCC s production experience was several hundred reactor-years. This was expressed as the sum of the number of production reactors, each multiplied by the number of years it had been in operation. Research and development had continued since the purchase of the original patent and the total number of people involved in ethylene oxide related research at one time reached one hundred. 

The original drive for the development of modem carbon fibers, in the late-1950s, was the demand for improved strong, stiff and lightweight materials for aerospace (and aeronautical) applications, particularly by the military in the West. The seminal work on carbon fibers in this period, at Union Carbide in the U.S.A., by Shindo, et al, in Japan and Watt, et al, in the U.K., is well-documented [4-7]. It is always worth pointing out, however, that the first carbon fibers, prepared from cotton and bamboo by Thomas Edison and patented in the U.S.A. in 1880, were used as filaments in incandescent lamps. 

Union Carbide Patents. During World War II, Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation patented a process (24) having some features in common with the German process described above. The Union Carbide process as patented is illustrated in Figure 15. The continuous process consists essentially of two reaction zones followed by a milling-pumping zone. 

Figure 15, Union Carbide patented continuous mass process for polystyrene (2A)...

Ethylene/propylene/ethylidenenorbomene rubbers US Patent 5106927, to Union Carbide, 1991. 

Union Carbide Corporation, Dutch Patent Application No. 68-16149 (1969). 

Higher molecular weight materials are typically prepared using coordination catalysts, such as the calcium amide-alkoxide system developed by Union Carbide,932 and double metal cyanide initiators, e.g., [Zn(Fe(CN)6)].933 The nature of the active sites in these catalysts is not well understood and only a few studies have been published outside the patent literature.810,934,935... 

In 1992, an important breakthrough appeared in the patent literature when Babin and Whiteker at Union Carbide reported the asymmetric hydroformylation of various alkenes with ees up to 90%, using bulky diphosphites derived from homochiral (2i ,4R)-pentane-2, 4-diol, UC-PP (1 19).359 360 van Leeuwen et al. studied these systems extensively. The influence of the bridge length, of the bulky substituents and the cooperativity of chiral centers on the performance of the catalyst has been reported.217 218 221 361-363... 

The first report to use diphosphite ligands in the asymmetric hydroformylation of vinyl arenes revealed no asymmetric induction [46]. An important breakthrough came in 1992 when Babin and Whiteker at Union Carbide patented the asymmetric hydroformylation of various alkenes with ee s up to 90%, using bulky diphosphites 2a-c derived from homochiral (2R, 4R)-pentane-2,4-diol (Scheme 4) [17]. Their early results showed that (a) bulky substituents are required at the ortho positions of the biphenyl moieties for good regio- and enantio-selectivity and (b) methoxy substituents in the para positions of the biphenyl moieties always produced better enantio-selectivities than those observed for the corresponding ferf-butyl-substituted analogues. 

This concept later evolved into the Ucarsep membrane made of a layer of nonsintered ceramic oxide (including Zr02) deposited on a porous carbon or ceramic support, which was patented by Union Carbide in 1973 (Trulson and Litz 1973). Apparently, the prospects for a significant industrial development of these membranes were at the time rather limited. In 1978, Union Carbide sold to SPEC the worldwide licence for these membranes, except for a number of applications in the textile industry in the U.S. At that time, SPEC recognized the potential of inorganic membranes, but declassification of the inorganic membrane technology it had itself developed for uranium enrichment was not possible. 

After the initial demonstration of stoichiometric nucleophilic attack on 7i-allyl ligands, catalytic allylic substitution reactions were pursued. In 1970, groups from Union Carbide [3, 4], Shell Oil [5], and Toray Industries [6] published or patented examples of catalytic allylic substitution. All three groups reported allylic amination with palladium catalysts. The Toray Industries report also demonstrated the exchange of aryl ether and ester leaving groups, and the patent from Shell Oil includes catalysts based on rhodium and platinum. 

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