Reppe, Walter

Reppe, Walter, Acetylene Chemistry, U. S. Dept. of Commerce, Office of Technical Services,... 

Reppe, Walter, Chemie und Technik der Acetylen-Druck-Reactionen, Weinheim, Verlag... 

Acetylene-Based Routes. Walter Reppe, the father of modem acetylene chemistry, discovered the reaction of nickel carbonyl with acetylene and water or alcohols to give acryUc acid or esters (75,76). This discovery led to several processes which have been in commercial use. The original Reppe reaction requires a stoichiometric ratio of nickel carbonyl to acetylene. The Rohm and Haas modified or semicatalytic process provides 60—80% of the carbon monoxide from a separate carbon monoxide feed and the remainder from nickel carbonyl (77—78). The reactions for the synthesis of ethyl acrylate are... 

L. Repp el, ZAnalChem 144,110-11(1955) (Color reactions of acardites 1 III) 5)Dr Hans Walter,... 

P. J. T. Morris, The technology-science interaction Walter Reppe and cyclo-octatetrene chemistry , Br. J. Hist. Sci., 1992, 25, 145-167. 

Otto Roelen and Walter Reppe Industrial Applications of Metal Carbonyls... 

Walter Reppe (1892-1969) was the research director of Badische Anilin- Sodafabrik (BASF) at Ludwigshafen, Germany. His research included metal-catalyzed reactions of acetylene (1938) and of carbon monoxide (1939) (Section 2.1.2.2). High-pressure catalytic acetylene chemistry is nowadays named after him. He also discovered the metal carbonyl-catalyzed cyclooligomerization of acetylene to yield styrene, benzene, and cyclooctatetraene (1948) [10, 77]. 

Reppe, W., Neue Entwicklungen auf dem Gebiete der Chemie des Acetylens und Kohlen-oxyde, New York, Walter J. Johnson, 1949. 

Recent research on acetylene as the basic hydrocarbon in the synthesis of a number of important oxygen-containing compounds has centered on the work of Walter Reppe and his associates of Germany. Prior to Reppe s work, the most important oxygen-containing derivatives of acetylene were acetaldehyde and acetone. 

A later improvement on this procedure was developed by the German chemist Walter Reppe (1892-1969), sometimes called the Father of Acetylene Chemistry. Since Reppe worked at that time for the BASF chemical corporation, the process is also known as the BASF process of making acetylene. In this procedure, hydrocarbons from petroleum are treated with an oxidizing agent that causes them to break apart to form smaller compounds, one of which, again, is acetylene. 

Walter Reppe, Officer of the Publication Board, Publication 2437. 

At the end of the 1920 s, Walter Reppe (29, 30, 31, 32) started his experiments on catalytic reactions with acetylene under pressure. On the basis of his studies, which soon were known all over the world as Reppe chemistry, it was possible to construct complicated organic compounds of high value from simple building stones. From the standpoint of the chemical engineer the greatness of his achievement was that the... 

Reactions with CO are one of the most important areas of application of homogeneous catalysis [T5]. They belong to the earliest industrial processes and are associated with the names Walter Reppe (BASF, Ludwigshafen) and Otto Roelen (Ruhrchemie, Oberhausen). 

At the end of 1932, Arthur Ltittringhaus for a short time received the post of leader of the Central Research Laboratory. He was a vat dyestuff specialist and also the director of the alizarin laboratory in Ludwigshafen. After the retirement of Ltittringhaus in January 1934, Max Kunz and Fritz Gtinther, who specialized in dyestuffs and detergents respectively, led the laboratory until Walter Reppe took over in 1938. The focal point of research at the Central Research Laboratory changed to more technical problems in the fields of dyestuffs, polymers, and organic intermediates. 

One example of the role of basic research in the 1930s is the work of Bemd Eistert, one of the earliest proponents of mesomerism in Germany, for which purpose he collaborated with his former teacher Fritz Arndt. Eistert joined BASF in 1929, and he took appointments in Oppau, at the Central Research Laboratory, at the triphenylmethane dyes department, and the patent department. It seems, however, as if his theoretical studies were done in a rather private way, and were not related to his tasks in the industrial departments. In the years after 1932, and especially with the appointment of Walter Reppe in 1938, the investigations at the Central Laboratory were directed towards pioneering technological research, not towards a deeper understanding of corporate-related science and technology. 

Walter Reppe (1892-1969), according to a 1946 British intelligence report, contributed more to the advancement of chemical science than probably any other LG. Farben employee. The son of a Thuringian schoolteacher, he was a very dedicated chemist. 

Even while he was busy with the manufacture of ethylene oxide, Walter Reppe was also involved with the development of Buna synthetic rubber. In 1926, the newly formed I.G. Farben decided to embark on the industrial synthesis of rubber, despite the poor quality of the methyl rubber made during World War I. This time, however, it was agreed that butadiene would be used. Several routes to butadiene were investigated, including decyclization of cyclohexene (a retro-Diels-Alder reaction), but the so-called four-step process (Vierstufen Verfahren) soon won out. This was partly because it used acetylene, and hence surplus carbide from cyanamide manufacture, but also because it drew on the steps - and hence the momentum - of the BASF butanol synthesis. As a member of the former butanol group, Reppe was a natural candidate for the four-step process project. 

Walter Reppe s breakthrough in the butadiene synthesis was central to the new... 

Walter Reppe also used his new base to expand the chemistry of acetylene. His first major breakthrough, in the summer of 1939, was the addition of carbon monoxide to acetylene in the presence of alcohols (or water) and a nickel catalyst to form acrylates. Carbon monoxide had attracted attention for many years as a readily available, cheap and reactive carbon compound. I.G. Farben employed it in the Pier methanol synthesis, Ruhrchemie used it in the Fischer-Tropsch synthetic petrol process, and Du Pont had carried out research on the addition of carbon monoxide to olefins at very high pressure and temperatures. Additional impetus for the use of carbon monoxide in acetylene chemistry was provided by the introduction of covered carbide furnaces at I.G. Farben s Knapsack plant in 1938, which permitted the collection of by-product carbon monoxide. The polymers of acrylic esters were already used for treating leather and for paint, but acrylic acid was made from ethylene oxide, and consequently was rather expensive. Reppe s process reached the pilot plant stage by 1945, and was subsequently used on a large scale by BASF and its American partners. 

They take place at high pressure using metal acelylide catalysts. The processes are named after the German chemist Walter Reppe (1892-1969), who pioneered techniques for the safe industrial use of acetylene. 

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