Ruhrchemie TPPTS

An example of a large scale application of the aqueous biphasic concept is the Ruhrchemie/Rhone-Poulenc process for the hydroformylation of propylene to n-butanal (Eqn. (15)), which employs a water-soluble rhodium(I) complex of trisulphonated triphenylphosphine (tppts) as the catalyst (Cornils and Wiebus, 1996). 

Eventually, the spent catalyst solution has to leave the oxo loop for work-up. The Ruhrchemie works of Celanese AG in Oberhausen (Germany) operate several rhodium-based oxo processes besides the well-known Ruhrchemie/Rhone-Poulenc process (RCF1/RP, the described low pressure oxo process with TPPTS-modified Rh catalyst), there are the Ruhrchemie process with an unmodified Rh catalyst at high pressure (comparable to the late ICI process [76] this variant is for the benefit of a high iso/n ratio... 

The third generation process concerns the Ruhrchemie/Rhone-Poulenc process utilizing a two-phase system containing water-soluble rhodium-tppts in one phase and the product butanal in the organic phase. The process has been in operation since 1984 by Ruhrchemie (or Celanese, nowadays). The system will be discussed in section 8.2.5. Since 1995 this process is also used for the hydroformylation of 1-butene. 

Two-phase process, tppts Ruhrchemie/Rhone-Poulenc... 

The tppts process has been commercialised by Ruhrchemie (now Celanese), after the initial work conducted by workers at Rhone-Poulenc, for the production of butanal from propene. Since 1995 Hoechst (now Celanese) also operates a hydroformylation plant for 1-butene. The partly isomerised, unconverted butenes are not recycled but sent to a reactor containing a cobalt catalyst. The two-phase process is not suited for higher alkenes because of the... 

In 1975 Kuntz has described that the complexes formed from various rhodium-containing precursors and the sulfonated phosphines, TPPDS (2) or TPPTS (3) were active catalysts of hydroformylafion of propene and 1-hexene [15,33] in aqueous/organic biphasic systems with virtually complete retention of rhodium in the aqueous phase. The development of this fundamental discovery into a large scale industrial operation, known these days as the Ruhrchemie-Rhone Poulenc (RCH-RP) process for hydroformylation of propene, demanded intensive research efforts [21,28]. Tire final result of these is characterized by the data in Table 4.2 in comparison with cobalt- or rhodium-catalyzed processes taking place in homogeneous organic phases. 

As mentioned earlier, in the Ruhrchemie-Rhone Poulenc process for propene hydroformylation the pH of the aqueous phase is kept between 5 and 6. This seems to be an optimum in order to avoid acid- and base-catalyzed side reactions of aldehydes and degradation of TPPTS. Nevertheless, it has been observed in this [93] and in many other cases [38,94-96,104,128,131] that the [RhH(CO)(P)3] (P = water-soluble phosphine) catalysts work more actively at higher pH. This is unusual for a reaction in which (seemingly) no charged species are involved. For example, in 1-octene hydroformylation with [ RhCl(COD) 2] + TPPTS catalyst in a biphasic medium the rates increased by two- to five-fold when the pH was changed from 7 to 10 [93,96]. In the same detailed kinetic studies [93,96] it was also established that the rate of 1-octene hydroformylation was a significantly different function of reaction parameters such as catalyst concentration, CO and hydrogen pressure at pH 7 than at pH 10. 

A breakthrough in the hydroformylation of propene was achieved following the synthesis of the water soluble ligand tppts for the preparation of the RhH(CO)(tppts)3 catalyst345 which formed the basis for the development of the Ruhrchemie/Rhone-Poulenc two phase process. This process operates under mild reaction conditions giving excellent n/i ratios and easy separation of products from the catalyst by decantation with virtually no catalyst leaching. 

Hydroformylation of Other Lower Olefins and Dienes - Lower olefins such as 1-butene or 1,3-butadiene are hydroformylated with acceptable rates using Rh/tppts catalysts according to the RCH/RP process. Hoechst AG Werk Ruhrchemie has developed an attractive new process350 for the hydroformylation of raffinate II, a mixture of 1-butene, cis- and /rbutane derived from the C4 stream of naphtha crackers (after removal of 1,3-butadiene... 

An important development in the past 15 years in hydroformylation technology was the introduction of biphasic homogeneous catalysis. Kuntz (62) expressed the basic idea of a new generation of water-soluble oxo catalysts with triphenylphosphane trisulfonate (tppts as the sodium salt) as a ligand for a rhodium-complex-catalyzed hydroformylation process. Ruhrchemie AG adapted the idea on the basis of research done at Rhone-Poulenc and developed it into an industrially viable process, which was... 

Although the standard Rh(I)/tppts catalyst has extremely good long-term stability, a slight loss of activity occurs after several years use. The deactivation mechanism of the Ruhrchemie/Rhone-Poulenc catalyst has been clarified in detail (63) and is presented in Scheme 5. 

Kuntz subsequently showed that the RhCl (tppts) 3 catalyzed the hydroformylation of propylene in an aqueous biphasic system [29]. These results were further developed, in collaboration with Ruhrchemie, to become what is known as the Ruhrchemie/Rhone-Poulenc two-phase process for the hydroformylation of propylene to n-butanal [18, 19, 22, 30]. Ruhrchemie developed a method for the large scale production of tppts by sulfonation of triphenylphosphine with 30% oleum at 20 °C for 24 h. The product is obtained in 95% purity by dilution with water, extraction with a water insoluble amine, such as tri(isooctylamine), and pH-controlled re-extraction of the sodium salt of tppts into water with a 5% aqueous solution of NaOH. The first commercial plant came on stream in 1984, with a capacity of 100000 tons per annum of butanal. Today the capacity is ca. 400000 tpa and a cumulative production of millions of tons. Typical reaction conditions are T=120°C, P=50bar, CO/H2 = 1.01, tppts/Rh = 50-100, [Rh] = 10-1000 ppm. The RhH(CO) (tppts)3 catalyst is prepared in situ from e.g. rhodium 2-ethylhexanoate and tppts in water. 

Catalyst decomposition is, overall, receiving little attention in academic work on homogeneous catalysis, and only in recent years has research on decomposition and stabilization of organometallic catalysts started to expand (116), with emphasis on reactions of significant commercial interest such as hydroformylation (117), metathesis 118), crosscoupling, and polymerization 119). Ligand decomposition seems to be a key issue for industrial application, because it affects the total number of turnovers, TON. Phosphine decomposition is an unavoidable side reaction in metal-phosphine complex-catalyzed reactions and the main barrier for commercial application of homogeneous catalysts. There are a few exceptions to this statement for example, the rhodium tppts-catalyzed hydroformylation of propene, a process developed by Ruhrchemie-Rhone Poulenc (now Celanese). 

Only limited data are available for the kinetics of oxo synthesis with the water-soluble catalyst HRh(CO)(TPPTS)3. The hydroformylation of 1-octene was studied in a two-phase system in presence of ethanol as a co-solvent to enhance the solubility of the olefin in the aqueous phase [115]. A rate expression was developed which was nearly identical to that of the homogeneous system, the exception being a slight correction for low hydrogen partial pressures. The lack of data is obvious and surprising at this time, when the Ruhrchemie/ Rhone-Pou-lenc process has been in operation for more than ten years [116]. Other kinetic studies on rhodium-catalyzed hydroformylation have been published, too. They involve rhodium catalysts such as [Rh(nbd)Cl]2 (nbd = norbomadiene) [117] or [Rh(SBu )(CO)P(OMe)3]2 [118], or phosphites as ligands [119, 120]. 

A far more elegant solution was the one offered by the Ruhrchemie/Rhone-Poulenc (RCH/RP) process, which was established in 1984 on an industrial scale threefold in mem-sulfonated triphenylphosphine (TPPTS, as sodium salt) as the ligand yields the water-soluble catalyst HRh(CO)(TPPTS)3. Because of the mutual insolubility, the separation of the aqueous catalyst phase and the butanals was extremely simplified, circumventing all the common difficulties and leading to very efficient operation. 

So far, TPPTS is the most ideal ligand modifier known for the oxo-active HRh(CO)4. Without any expensive preformation steps, three of the four CO ligands can be substituted by the readily soluble (1100 g/1 [37]), nontoxic (LD50, oral 5000 mg/kg) TPPTS, which yields the hydrophilic 0x0 catalyst HRh(CO)[P(m-sulfophenyl-Na)3]3 as an in-situ catalyst [198] (cf. Figure 6). An appropriate process has been commercialized by Ruhrchemie AG (see Section 3.1.1.1.3). 

With optimized process operation the reaction is strongly regioselective. The process is commercialized by Rhone-Poulenc using Ruhrchemie s TPPTS and yields precursors for vitamin E cf. Section 3.1.1.1.3 [163, 164] Sc or Y triflates catalyze aqueous biphasic reactions which are alternatives to base-catalyzed processes such as aldol or Michael-type conversions [257]. 

---