Propene oxide

Methane and ethane production in the ethylene oxide flame suggest the participation of methyl radicals 

Ethane formation in the ethylene oxide flame might then arise in a similar sequence, viz. 

With both flames, the formation of butadiene is strong evidence for the existence of C2H3 radicals. As no methanol was found in the propene oxide flames it was concluded that pyrolysis of the fuel 

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 

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Chemical Designations - Synonyms 1,2-Epoxypropane Methyloxirane propene oxide Chemical Formula CH3CHCH2O. 

The one general exception to the rule that ethers don t typically undergo Sn2 reactions occurs with epoxides, the three-membered cyclic ethers that we saw in Section 7.8. Epoxides, because of the angle strain in the three-membered ring, are much more reactive than other ethers. They react with aqueous acid to give 1,2-diols, as we saw in Section 7.8, and they react readily with many other nucleophiles as well. Propene oxide, for instance, reacts with HC1 to give l-chloro-2-propanol by Snj2 backside attack on the less hindered primary carbon atom. We ll look at the process in more detail in Section 18.6. 

Schreiber found that the monoalkylation of the lithium enolate of cyclonona-none with propene oxide could be cleanly effected by addition of AlMe3 to give the y-hydroxy ketone 145, a key intermediate for the synthesis of recifeiolide [69a]. 

Scheme 8.38 Monoalkylation of the lithium enolate of cyclononanone with propene oxide.

Posner recently reported a very simple and fast way to activate epoxides towards nucleophilic opening by ketone lithium enolate anions by use of BF3 Et20 (1 equiv.) [73]. The application of this procedure to the nucleophilic opening of propene oxide with the lithium enolate of 2-cycloheptanone, obtained by the conjugate addition of trimethylstannyllithium to 2-cycloheptenone, afforded the stan-... 

The polyether-based polyurethanes are now of greater commercial importance then those based on polyesters. A frequently used polyether is that derived from propene oxide, as illustrated in Reaction 4.9. 

De la Vega and Sasson (ref. 20) added propene oxide as a HBr-scavenger in the bromination of toluene over NaY in CCI4 and obtained an initial p/o-ratio... 

Xanthobacter sp. strain Py2 may be grown with propene or propene oxide. On the basis of amino acid sequences, the monooxygenase that produces the epoxide was related to those that catalyzes the monooxygenation of benzene and toluene (Zhou et al. 1999). The metabolism of the epoxide is initiated by nucleophilic reaction with coenzyme M followed by dehydrogenation (Eigure 7.13a). There are alternative reactions, both of which are dependent on a pyridine nucleotide-disulfide oxidoreductase (Swaving et al. 1996 Nocek et al. 2002) ... 

In the following scheme, an oxidation pathway for propane and propene is proposed. This mechanism, that could be generalized to different hansition metal oxide catalysts, implies that propene oxidation can follow the allylic oxidation way, or alternatively, the oxidation way at C2, through acetone. The latter easily gives rise to combustion, because it can give rise to enolization and C-C bond oxidative breaking. This is believed to be the main combustion way for propene over some catalysts, while for other catalysts acrolein overoxidation could... 

Examples for necessary process improvements through catalyst research are the development of one-step processes for a number of bulk products like acetaldehyde and acetic acid (from ethane), phenol (from benzene), acrolein (from propane), or allyl alcohol (from acrolein). For example, allyl alcohol, a chemical which is used in the production of plasticizers, flame resistors and fungicides, can be manufactured via gas-phase acetoxylation of propene in the Hoechst [1] or Bayer process [2], isomerization of propene oxide (BASF-Wyandotte), or by technologies involving the alkaline hydrolysis of allyl chloride (Dow and Shell) thereby producing stoichiometric amounts of unavoidable by-products. However, if there is a catalyst... 

Table 8.6. Kinetic parameters of CO, propane and propene oxidation over M/A1203 and M/Ce02—A1203 catalysts (M = Pt, Pd or Rh)...

The majority of gold(I) carbene complexes are pure organometallic compounds and the are out of the scope of this work. Some halide or triphenylphosphine carbene complexes are known and they will be considered here. Nucleophilic addition of alcohols or amines to gold-coordinated isocyanides is one of the best-established methods to obtain gold carbene derivatives. The reaction of H[Au(CN)2] with propene oxide and estirene oxide yields (cyano)carbene complexes (380) avoiding the intermediate step.2257 A cyclic carbene compound is obtained by reaction of a dinuclear isocyanide with amine (Scheme 32).2258... 

Catalysis is a special type of closed-sequence reaction mechanism (Chapter 7). In this sense, a catalyst is a species which is involved in steps in the reaction mechanism, but which is regenerated after product formation to participate in another catalytic cycle. The nature of the catalytic cycle is illustrated in Figure 8.1 for the catalytic reaction used commercially to make propene oxide (with Mo as the catalyst), cited above. 

Propene oxide is also manufactured by the chlorhydrin route (186) ... 

The disappearance of the propene bands was not noticed when H202 (and consequently TiOOH) was not present. After 80 min, the product spectrum included bands at 830, 895, 1372, 1409, 1452, 1460 and 1493 cm-1. The product spectrum was similar to that obtained when a sample of propene oxide was loaded onto TS-1. The rate of decay of the 837-cm-1 absorption (0-0 vibration of TiOOH) was accompanied by the growth of the infrared bands of the product. These observations led Lin and Frei to conclude that the TiOOH group was... 

In an attempt to quantify the relationship between the TiOOH groups and the yield of propene oxide from the extinction coefficients of the latter s 1409-and 1493-cm-1 bands, it was determined that 0.6 mol of the epoxide formed per mole of framework Ti center in the molecular sieve. That is, at least 60% of all framework Ti (80% of the surface-exposed Ti) is converted to TiOOH upon reaction with H202. The consumption of the TiOOH species during the oxygen insertion into propene was also independently confirmed by the loss in intensity of its LMCT band at 360 nm when the catalyst was brought in contact with propene at room temperature (Fig. 50). 

Rhenium is one of the oxophilic atoms effective for oxidation reactions. ReOx species are likely to have chemical interaction with various oxide supports and exhibit unique catalytic properties that cannot be observed on monomeric rhenium oxides. A new active six-membered octahedral Re cluster in zeolite pores (H-ZSM-5 [HZ]) is produced from inactive [Re04] monomers in situ under selective propene oxidation to acrolein (C3H6+02 - CH2=CHCH0+H20) in the presence of ammonia that is not involved in the reaction equation [16], The cluster is transformed back to the original inactive monomer in the absence ammonia. Note that coexistence of spectator NH3 is indispensable for the selective oxidation. 

The proposed Re6 cluster (8) with terminal and bridged-oxygen atoms acts as a catalytic site for selective propene oxidation under a mixture of propene, Oz and NH3. When the Re6 catalyst is treated with propene and Oz at 673 K, the cluster is transformed back to the inactive [Re04] monomers (7), reversibly. This is the reason why the catalytic activity is lost in the absence of ammonia (Table 8.5). Note that NH3, which is not involved in the reaction equation for the acrolein formation (C3H6+02->CH2=CHCH0+H20) is a prerequisite for the catalytic reaction as it produces the active cluster structure under the catalytic reaction conditions. 

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