Propylene active catalyst systems

The concept proposed by us is pictured simply in Fig. 23. The level of water represents the chemical potential of active oxygen involved in the oxidation of propylene, and the vessels connected on the tank are involved in two kinds of active sites that activate molecular oxygen to atomic species and oxidize propylene to acrolein. If active sites expressed by vessels are isolated from each other, each site must do everything by itself to convert propylene to acrolein. This situation is less convenient than the preparation of the active catalyst system. When active species of oxygen can migrate rapidly through the bulk diffusion of oxide ion as shown in Fig. 23, equal-... 

Type (b) behavior, in which the rate of polymerization increases in an acceleration period to reach a maximum and then decreases, may be observed for a more active but less stable catalyst, while Type (c) or Type (d) behavior in which the rate starts at a maximum value or rises very rapidly to a maximum value and then decrease rapidly with time is exhibited by many supported high-activity catalyst systems, e.g., MgCl2/ethylbenzoate/TiCl4-AlEt3 in ethylene or propylene polymerization. Type (c) behavior is also shown by many honiogeneous catalyst systems, e.g., Cp2TiEtCl-AlEtCl2 in ethylene polymerization (Cp = cyclopenta-diene). 

Kashiwa, N. Yoshitake, J. Kinetic study on propylene polymerization by a high activity catalyst system MgCl2/TiCl4/PhC02Et-AlEt3/PhC02Et. Polym. Bull. 1984,11, 479-484. 

Erom 1955—1975, the Ziegler-Natta catalyst (91), which is titanium trichloride used in combination with diethylaluminum chloride, was the catalyst system for propylene polymerization. However, its low activity, which is less than 1000 g polymer/g catalyst in most cases, and low selectivity (ca 90% to isotactic polymer) required polypropylene manufacturers to purify the reactor product by washing out spent catalyst residues and removing unwanted atactic polymer by solvent extraction. These operations added significantly to the cost of pre-1980 polypropylene. 

Both fixed and fluid-bed reactors are used to produce acrylonitrile, but most modern processes use fluid-bed systems. The Montedison-UOP process (Figure 8-2) uses a highly active catalyst that gives 95.6% propylene conversion and a selectivity above 80% for acrylonitrile. The catalysts used in ammoxidation are similar to those used in propylene oxidation to acrolein. Oxidation of propylene occurs readily at... 

The hydration of propylene with sulfuric acid catalyst in high-temperature water was investigated using a flow reaction system.31 The major product is isopropanol. A biopolymer-metal complex, wool-supported palladium-iron complex (wool-Pd-Fe), has been found to be a highly active catalyst for the hydration of some alkenes to the corresponding alcohols. The yield is greatly affected by the Pd/Fe molar ratio in the wool-Pd-Fe complex catalyst and the catalyst can be reused several times without remarkable change in the catalytic activity.32... 

The isotacticities and activities achieved with nonbridged metallocene catalyst precursors were low. Partially isotactic polypropylene has been obtained by using a catalyst system of unbridged (non-ansa type) metallocenes at low temperatures [65]. A chiral zirconocene complex such as rac-ZrCl2(C5H4 CHMePh)2 (125) is the catalyst component for the isospecific polymerization of propylene (mmmm 0.60, 35% of type 1 and 65% of type 2 in Scheme Y) [161]. More bulky metallocene such as bis(l-methylfluorenyl)zirconium dichloride (126) together with MAO polymerized propylene to isotactic polypropylene in a temperature range between 40 and 70°C [162]. 

Oxypro (1) A process for making di-isopropyl ether (DOPE) from a propane/propylene stream from FCC. The catalyst system is superior to other acid catalysts such as zeolites because of its greater activity at low temperatures. The Oxypro catalyst functions at below 175°C, whereas zeolites require temperatures closer to 260°C. DOPE is used as a gasoline additive. Developed by UOP in 1994 first licensed in Chile in 1996 for completion in 1997. 

Besides ODH processes, a few reports about non-oxidative dehydrogenation (DH) over carbon catalysts also exist. At the reaction temperature of 823-873 K, propane is reported to react to propylene and hydrogen in high yield (30-40 %) over ordered mesoporous carbon, which was shown to be much more active than graphitic and/or nanostructured carbon (CNTs) [66], On the other hand, a hybrid catalyst system for... 

The transition group compound (catalyst) and the metal alkyl compound (activator) form an organometallic complex through alkylation of the transition metal by the activator which is the active center of polymerization (Cat). With these catalysts not only can ethylene be polymerized but also a-olefins (propylene, 1-butylene, styrene) and dienes. In these cases the polymerization can be regio- and stereoselective so that tactic polymers are obtained. The possibilities of combination between catalyst and activator are limited because the catalytic systems are specific to a certain substrate. This means that a given combination is mostly useful only for a certain monomer. Thus conjugated dienes can be polymerized by catalyst systems containing cobalt or nickel, whereas those systems... 

The rate of reaction of propylene over the MeReOs/HMDS/silica-alumina catalyst (1.4 wt% Re) is shown in Figure 2b. The profile is similar to that of the Sn-promoted perrhenate catalyst, with kobs = (1-78 + 0.09) x 10" s, and the activity responds similarly to subsequent additions of propylene. In fact, the pseudo-first-order rate constant for the organometallic catalyst lies on the same line as the rate constants for the Sn-promoted perrhenate catalyst. Figure 3. Therefore we infer that the same active site is generated in both organometallic and promoted inorganic catalyst systems. 

During the history of a half century from the first discovery of the reaction (/) and 35 years after the industrialization (2-4), these catalytic reactions, so-called allylic oxidations of lower olefins (Table I), have been improved year by year. Drastic changes have been introduced to the catalyst composition and preparation as well as to the reaction process. As a result, the total yield of acrylic acid from propylene reaches more than 90% under industrial conditions and the single pass yield of acrylonitrile also exceeds 80% in the commercial plants. The practical catalysts employed in the commercial plants consist of complicated multicomponent metal oxide systems including bismuth molybdate or iron antimonate as the main component. These modern catalyst systems show much higher activity and selectivity... 

Investigations into the scheelite-type catalyst gave much valuable information on the reaction mechanisms of the allylic oxidations of olefin and catalyst design. However, in spite of their high specific activity and selectivity, catalyst systems with scheelite structure have disappeared from the commercial plants for the oxidation and ammoxidation of propylene. This may be attributable to their moderate catalytic activity owing to lower specific surface area compared to the multicomponent bismuth molybdate catalyst having multiphase structure. 

Choosing divalent and trivalent cations and determining the composition is the most important in designing the multicomponent bismuth molybdate catalyst system. Catalytic activities of typical tri- and tetracomponent bismuth molybdate catalysts having multiphase structure were reported for the oxidation of propylene to form acrolein (35, 36, 40-43, 97, 98). A typical example of the activity test is shown in Fig. 6. Summarizing the results shown in Fig. 6 and reported previously (30, 43, 44), the following trends are generally found. 

Another example is illustrated in the relationship between the specific rotation and the microstructure of polypropylene oxide reported by Price. Optically active propylene oxide and racemic propylene oxide-a-d were polymerized under otherwise identical conditions by the freeze-dried ZnEt2-H20 (1 0.7) catalyst system containing varying amounts of ZnEt2. A linear relationship was observed between specific rotation of the former polymer and the tail-to-tail dyad content of the latter (Fig. 14). This result proves quantitatively that the decrease in the specific rotation of polymer prepared by several catalysts is due to the presence of head-to-head and tail-to-tail linkages, and also provides supporting evidence for our microstructure analysis. 

The diethylzinc-alcohol (1 2) system was also extensively studied by Tsuruta and his co workers (85,86). Amorphous zinc dialkoxide was concluded to be an active species, because crystalline zinc alkoxide prepared from zinc chloride and lithium alkoxide proved to have only a very small catalytic activity. Based on kinetic studies of the polymerization of propylene oxide with the ZnEt2-CH3OH (1 2) catalyst system, the catalytically active species was concluded to be the complex formed by coordination of one molecule of monomer to the catalyst. In the polymerization of propylene oxide with the catalyst system, it was concluded that the monomer was polymerized by ring opening brought about by cleaving the CH2-0 bond (87). 

Inoue,S., Tsukuma.I., Kawaguchi,M., Tsuruta,T. Synthesis of optically active polymers by asymmetric catalysts. VI. Behavior of organozinc catalyst systems in the stereoselective polymerization of propylene oxide. Makromol. Chem. 103,151 (1967). 

This reaction was one of the first examples of catalysis by a supported organometallic compound. In 1964 it was observed that Mo (CO) 6/ A1203, after activation by heating in vacuo at 120°C, catalyzed the conversion of propylene into ethylene and 2-butene (82). The nature of the active site in this catalyst system is still not fully defined (83). Since the initial discovery many heterogeneous and homogeneous catalyst systems have been reported (84, 85), the latter being more amenable to kinetic and mechanistic studies. 

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