Silicon methanol adsorbed

Methyl chloride is an important industrial product, having a global annual capacity of ca. 900 000 tons. Its primary use is for the manufacture of more highly chlorinated materials such as dichloromethane and chloroform and for the production of silicone fluids and elastomers. It is usually manufactured by the reaction of methanol with hydrogen chloride with a suitable acid catalyst, such as alumina. To develop a site-specific reaction mechanism and a kinetics model for the overall process, one first needs to identify all the reagents present at the catalyst surface and the nature of their interactions with the surface. The first step in the reaction is dissociative adsorption of methanol to give adsorbed methoxy species. Diffuse reflectance IR spectroscopy (29d) showed the expected methoxy C-H stretch and deformations, but an additional feature, with some substructure, at 2600 cm was... 

Methanol is oxidized to formate ions, acetone and acetaldehyde to acetate species. An enolic form of adsorbed acetone is seen, which accounts for rapid isotopic exchange of -OH. On O2 adsorption two bands at 1155 and 1020 cm are formed,which are however not assigned. Mixtures of CO plus O2 lead to the obvious formation of carbonates and bicarbonates. CO interaction with presorbed NH3 forms carbamate species. Oxidizing properties of the surface are shown by the reaction of trichloroacetone to trichloroacetate species. Nitriles are, however, hydrolysed to acetimidate species R-CNH . Similar reactions with surface -OH are shown by ethyl and phenyl isocyanate, which form urethanes by reaction with isolated -OH groups, and 1,3-diethylurea with -OH pairs. Reaction with surface -OH is also shown by trimethylchlorosilane, which, however, harshly attacks the surface and forms silicone species. ... 

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