Propene commercial production

Current commercial production of methyloxirane (propene oxide), used extensively in the production of polyurethanes, is usually based on a chloro-hydrin process. However, the direct gas-phase synthesis of methyloxirane... 

Cationic polymerization is applied almost exclusively to monomers with olefinic double bonds. Susceptible are double bonds whose carbon atoms carry electron-donating substituents such as alkyl groups. Thus, isobutene with two methyl groups adjacent to the double bond polymerizes readily, propene with only one is sluggish, and ethene with none is inert a-methyl styrene is more reactive than styrene vinyl ethers are reactive, but vinyl chloride is not. The most important commercial product is butyl rubber, produced by copolymerization of isobutene with small amounts of isoprene, initiated by A1C13, BF3, or TiCl4 [82]. 

Two variants of the Oxirane process are used (Figure 1) for the commercial production of propene oxide (PO) [29]. They differ in the hydrocarbon (isobutane or ethylbenzene (EB)) that is the precursor of the hydroperoxide, and, hence, in the alcohol co-product. ARCO operates both processes using a homogeneous molybdenum catalyst. Shell, in contrast, operates only the EB variant and uses a heterogeneous Ti /Si02 catalyst. 

For the commercial production of vinyl acetate, a procedure with a heterogeneous fixed-bed catalyst is exclusively applied today. The catalysts usually consist of palladium salts, mostly the acetate, or palladium metal together with alkali acetate supported on a carrier such as alumina, silica, or carbon without any additional oxidant. This process avoids the formation of larger amounts of by-products. Thus, from ethylene vinyl acetate and from propene, allyl acetate is obtained exclusively. 

The commercial production of f-butyl methyl ether has become important in recent years. In 2002, worldwide consumption of MTBE was about 7 billion gallons. With an octane value of 110, it is used as an octane number enhancer in unleaded gasolines. It is prepared by the acid-catalyzed addition of methanol to 2-methyl-propene. The reaction is related to the hydration of alkenes (Sec. 3.7.b). The only difference is that an alcohol, methanol, is used as the nucleophile instead of water. 

Shell s process-related patents often use the propane bridged l,3-bis-(di-2-anisylphosphmo)propane as the ligand (dapp) [36]. Carilon, Shell s trade name for the terpolymer of ethene, CO and propene - added for lowering the processing temperature of the product - has been in commercial production on a relatively small scale in the late nineties. 

After a number of efforts, the conunercial production of vinyl acetate from ethylene and AcOH was initially established as a Uquid phase process represented by the equation shown in Scheme 5. This process was later replaced by a gas phase process using a supported Pd catalyst. The commercial production of allyl acetate from propene and AcOH (Scheme 6) was also established by the gas phase. Allyl alcohol is produced by using this process. The outline of such developments was reviewed by Tsuji. ... 

Flotation Reagents. Only one sulfide mineral flotation collector is manufactured from phosphine, ie, the sodium salt of bis(2-methylpropyl)phosphinodithioic acid [13360-78-6]. It is available commercially from Cytec Industries Inc. as a 50% aqueous solution and is sold as AEROPHINE 3418A promoter. The compound is synthesized by reaction of 2-methyl-1-propene [115-11-7] with phosphine to form an iatermediate dialkylphosphine which is subsequently treated with elemental sulfur [7704-34-9] and sodium hydroxide [1310-73-2] to form the final product (14). The reactions described ia equations 10 and 11... 

Homogeneous rhodium-catalyzed hydroformylation (135,136) of propene to -butyraldehyde (qv) was commercialized in 1976. -Butyraldehyde is a key intermediate in the synthesis of 2-ethyIhexanol, an important plasticizer alcohol. Hydroformylation is carried out at <2 MPa (<290 psi) at 100°C. A large excess of triphenyl phosphine contributes to catalyst life and high selectivity for -butyraldehyde (>10 1) yielding few side products (137). Normally, product separation from the catalyst [Rh(P(C2H2)3)3(CO)H] [17185-29-4] is achieved by distillation. 

Alternatively, thermolysis yields the terminal alkene RCH=CH2. Note that, if propene or higher alkenes are u.sed instead of ethene, then only single insertion into Al-C occurs. This has been commercially exploited in the catalytic dimerization of propene to 2-methylpentene-1, which can then be cracked to isoprene for the production of synthetic rubber (cu-1,4-polyisoprene) ... 

Transition metal oxides or their combinations with metal oxides from the lower row 5 a elements were found to be effective catalysts for the oxidation of propene to acrolein. Examples of commercially used catalysts are supported CuO (used in the Shell process) and Bi203/Mo03 (used in the Sohio process). In both processes, the reaction is carried out at temperature and pressure ranges of 300-360°C and 1-2 atmospheres. In the Sohio process, a mixture of propylene, air, and steam is introduced to the reactor. The hot effluent is quenched to cool the product mixture and to remove the gases. Acrylic acid, a by-product from the oxidation reaction, is separated in a stripping tower where the acrolein-acetaldehyde mixture enters as an overhead stream. Acrolein is then separated from acetaldehyde in a solvent extraction tower. Finally, acrolein is distilled and the solvent recycled. 

The initiator can be a radical, an acid, or a base. Historically, as we saw in Section 7.10, radical polymerization was the most common method because it can be carried out with practically any vinyl monomer. Acid-catalyzed (cationic) polymerization, by contrast, is effective only with vinyl monomers that contain an electron-donating group (EDG) capable of stabilizing the chain-carrying carbocation intermediate. Thus, isobutylene (2-methyl-propene) polymerizes rapidly under cationic conditions, but ethylene, vinyl chloride, and acrylonitrile do not. Isobutylene polymerization is carried out commercially at -80 °C, using BF3 and a small amount of water to generate BF3OH- H+ catalyst. The product is used in the manufacture of truck and bicycle inner tubes. 

Copper-complexes prepared with other type of N-chelating ligands have been also prepared and evaluated as catalysts for the Diels-Alder reaction. Eng-berts et al. [103] studied enantioselective Diels-Alder reaction of 3-phenyl-l-(2-pyridyl)-2-propen-l-one with cyclopentadiene in water (Scheme 39). By using coordinating chiral, commercially available a-amino-adds and their derivatives with copper salts as catalysts, they obtained the desired product with yields generally exceeding 90%. With L-abrine (72 in Scheme 39) as chiral moiety, an enantiomeric excess of 74% could be achieved. Moreover, the catalyst solution was reused with no loss of enantioselectivity. 

Several other important commercial processes need to be mentioned. They are (not necessarily in the order of importance) the low pressure methanol process, using a copper-containing catalyst which was introduced in 1972 the production of acetic add from methanol over RhI catalysts, which has cornered the market the methanol-to-gasoline processes (MTG) over ZSM-5 zeolite, which opened a new route to gasoline from syngas and ammoxidation of propene over mixed-oxide catalysts. In 1962, catalytic steam reforming for the production of synthesis gas and/or hydrogen over nickel potassium alumina catalysts was commercialized. 

Considerable work has been conducted on a water-soluble catalyst using sulfonated phosphine-modified rhodium. Details of this chemistry will be described in Chapter 5. The general concept (Figure 2.3) is to make the catalyst water soluble, then after product formation, decant the product. In order for the water-soluble catalyst to be effective, the alkene must dissolve in the aqueous layer. This has been demonstrated on a commercial basis using propene. The low solubility of higher alkenes in the aqueous catalyst layer has proven problematic. The desirable characteristic of the ligand, water solubility, is needed in the separation step but is a disadvantage in the reaction step. 

So far only propene and butene are hydroformylated commercially using the RCH/RP process. A reason which has been postulated for this is the decreasing solubility in water with increasing number of C atoms in both the starting alkene and the reaction products (Figure 5.4) and the associated mass-transfer problems in the relatively complicated gas-liquid-liquid, three-phase reaction. 

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