Propylene oxide catalysts performance

Polyester resins can also be rapidly formed by the reaction of propylene oxide (5) with phthaUc and maleic anhydride. The reaction is initiated with a small fraction of glycol initiator containing a basic catalyst such as lithium carbonate. Molecular weight development is controlled by the concentration of initiator, and the highly exothermic reaction proceeds without the evolution of any condensate water. Although this technique provides many process benefits, the low extent of maleate isomerization achieved during the rapid formation of the polymer limits the reactivity and ultimate performance of these resins. 

After epoxidation a distillation is performed to remove the propylene, propylene oxide, and a portion of the TBHP and TBA overhead. The bottoms of the distillation contains TBA, TBHP, some impurities such as formic and acetic acid, and the catalyst residue. Concentration of this catalyst residue for recycle or disposal is accompHshed by evaporation of the majority of the TBA and other organics (141,143,144), addition of various compounds to yield a metal precipitate that is filtered from the organics (145—148), or Hquid extraction with water (149). Low (<500 ppm) levels of soluble catalyst can be removed by adsorption on soHd magnesium siUcate (150). The recovered catalyst can be treated for recycle to the epoxidation reaction (151). 

Lu and coworkers have synthesized a related bifunctional cobalt(lll) salen catalyst similar to that seen in Fig. 11 that contains an attached quaternary ammonium salt (Fig. 13) [36]. This catalyst was found to be very effective at copolymerizing propylene oxide and CO2. For example, in a reaction carried out at 90°C and 2.5 MPa pressure, a high molecular weight poly(propylene carbonate) = 59,000 and PDI = 1.22) was obtained with only 6% propylene carbonate byproduct. For a polymerization process performed under these reaction conditions for 0.5 h, a TOF (turnover frequency) of 5,160 h was reported. For comparative purposes, the best TOF observed for a binary catalyst system of (salen)CoX (where X is 2,4-dinitrophenolate) onium salt or base for the copolymerization of propylene oxide and CO2 at 25°C was 400-500 h for a process performed at 1.5 MPa pressure [21, 37]. On the other hand, employing catalysts of the type shown in Fig. 12, TOFs as high as 13,000 h with >99% selectivity for copolymers withMn 170,000 were obtained at 75°C and 2.0 MPa pressure [35]. The cobalt catalyst in Fig. 13 has also been shown to be effective for selective copolymer formation from styrene oxide and carbon dioxide [38]. 

In spite of the accumulated mechanistic investigations, it still seems difficult to explain why multicomponent bismuth molybdate catalysts show much better performances in both the oxidation and the ammoxidation of propylene and isobutylene. The catalytic activity has been increased almost 100 times compared to the simple binary oxide catalysts to result in the lowering of the reaction temperatures 60 80°C. The selectivities to the partially oxidized products have been also improved remarkably, corresponding to the improvements of the catalyst composition and reaction conditions. The reaction mechanism shown in Figs. 1 and 2 have been partly examined on the multicomponent bismuth molybdate catalysts. However, there has been no evidence to suggest different mechanisms on the multicomponent bismuth molybdate catalysts. 

The strategy we adopted for attacking our problem, i.e., the complete understanding of the stereoregulation mechanism in the stereospecific polymerization reaction, has been successfully applied to the stereospecific polymerization of acetaldehyde and propylene oxide. The same strategy should be applicable also to other types of catalysts and monomers, even if the difficulty encountered in the experimental performance is greater. The fruitful harvest must await future investigation. 

The first enantiomer-selective polymerization was performed with propylene oxide (172) as a monomer [245], The polymerization was carried out with a ZnEt2/(+)-bor-neol or ZnEt2/(-)-menthol initiator system. The obtained polymer was optically active and the unreacted monomer was rich in (S)-isomer. Various examples are known concerning the polymerization and copolymerization of 172 [246-251 ]. A Schiff base complex 173 has been shown to be an effective catalyst In the polymerization at 60°C, the enantiopurity of the remaining monomer was 9% ee at 50% monomer conversion [250],... 

The creation of selective catalysts for such complex reactions seems to be an especially difficult problem. Nevertheless, surprisingly, selective catalysts have been developed for complex reactions, which can be exemplified by the oxidation and ammoxidation of propylene, oxidation of butene and even butane to maleic anhydride (which requires seven oxygen atoms). Such reactions are usually performed over V and Mo oxide systems [4, 6, 8-10]. High selectivity of these systems is presumably provided by a special structure of the catalyst surface that allows control... 

P 4] For preliminary investigations a small-scale micro structured reactor was used to perform gas-phase epoxidation of propylene to propylene oxide with evaporated H202. As catalyst titanium silicate (TS-1) was used. 

Ivars F, Solsona B, Hernandez S, Lopez Nieto JM. Influence of gel composition in the synthesis of MoVTeNb catalysts over their catalytic performance in partial propane and propylene oxidation. Catalysis Today. 2010 149(3 4) 260 266. 

Rhodium and ruthenium complexes of CHIRAPHOS are also useful for the asymmetric hydrogenation of p-keto esters. Dynamic kinetic resolution of racemic 2-acylamino-3-oxobutyrates was performed by hydrogenation using ((5,5)-CHIRAPHOS)RuBr2 (eq 3). The product yields and enantiomeric excesses were dependent upon solvent, ligand, and the ratio of substrate to catalyst. Under optimum conditions a 97 3 mixture of syn and anti p-hydroxy esters was formed, which was converted to o-threonine (85% ee) and D-allothreonine (99% ee) by hydrolysis and reaction with propylene oxide. 

Then, the catalytic action is performed under homogeneous conditions and, at the end of the reaction, H2O2 being completely consumed, the precatalyst precipitates and can be easily filtered off and recovered. Both conversions and selectivities of this method are very good. Finally, as in the case of TS-1, this epoxidation system was combined with the 2-ethylanthra-quinone (EAQ)/2-ethylanthrahydroquinone (EAHQ) process for hydrogen peroxide formation, and good conversion and selectivity were obtained for propylene oxide in three consecutive cycles. The catalyst was recovered and reused in between every cycle (Scheme 5) ... 

In principle it would seem reasonable that the bulk structure and surface properties of a solid would influence the catalytic performance. Verification of this view and an assessment of its importance may be more significant than first appears since it incorporates an implication that catalytic preparation should be designed to achieve the bulk structure and surface properties that give the optimized catalytic performance. Materials which have been shown to catalyze the conversion of propylene to acrolein have included metal oxides, mixed oxides, and more lately the multicomponent catalysts. A consideration of all these solids would require the assessment of numerous data and speculation. However, the mixed oxide catalysts have been associated with many of the more recent investigations of the course of catalytic oxidation, and these catalysts therefore seem to be worthy of detailed consideration. 

Although several mixed oxide catalysts have been developed commercially for the selective oxidation of propylene, the investigation of their fundamental physical and chemical properties has resulted in only a slow and steady accumulation of information. It also appears that attempts to correlate data from different investigations have frequently resulted in unsatisfactory interpretations. It seems that some of this uncertainty arises from correlations between results obtained from different catalysts subjected to different pretreatments and assessed under different evaluation conditions. Hence, the comprehensive description of the bulk and surface properties of a single catalyst, their interdependence, and their influence on catalytic performance is in most cases quite unclear. 

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using TiC was used to prepare Ti/Si02, Ti/MCM-41, and Ti/MCM-48 catalysts. These catalysts were characterized by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, nitrogen adsorption, and were used to catalyze the epoxidation of propylene to propylene oxide (PO) with in situ prepared ethylbenzene hydroperoxide (EBHP). CVD time and CVD temperature affected the catalyst performance significantly. The optimum temperature range was 800-900 °C, and the optimum deposition time was 2.5-3 h. The maximum PO yields obtained in a batch reactor were 87.2, 94.3, and 88.8% for Ti/Si02, Ti/ MCM-41, and Ti/MCM-48, respectively. Ti/MCM-41 had higher titanium... 

Thus, a preliminary analysis of olefin production pathways can be performed based on the methane-to-ethylene ratio and on temperature dependence of the (C3 = )-to-(C2 =) ratio. A more detailed elaboration can be reached from experiments with varied oxygen concentration and from the detailed analysis of the product distribution (including hydrogen formation). However, ethylene formation itself is strong evidence for the contribution of the radical route in product formation. The analysis of experimental data about product distribution during propane oxidation (Kondratenko et al, 2005) demonstrates that over rare-earth oxide catalysts radical route is prevailing in olefin formation. On the other hand, over supported Y-containing catalysts, propylene... 

Vapor-phase aerobic oxidations of lower olefins, e. g. propylene to acrolein or acrylic acid and isobutene to methacrolein or methacrylic acid, are well-established bulk chemical processes [1,2], They are usually performed over oxidic catalysts, such as bismuth molybdate or heteropoly compounds, although the scope of these allylic oxidations is limited to olefins that cannot form 1,3-dienes via oxidative dehydrogenation. Thus 1- and 2-butene are converted to butadiene, and methylbutenes to isoprene, and with higher olefins complex mixtures result from further oxidation. Hence, such methodologies are not relevant in the context of fine chemicals. 

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