Some Important Features of Carbonylation Process Chemistry

Some Important Features of Carbonylation Process Chemistry 

Before looking in detail at the mechanisms of the various reactions and processes it is worth summarizing some relevant observations about the carbonylation processes as a whole that need to be explained by these mechanisms. It should be noted that, although the overall feedstock is MeOH for an AcOH process, for practical reasons it is usual to operate with relatively high [AcOH] in the reactor and that most of the substrate is present as MeOAc through esterification (Eq. (3)). 

It is usual therefore to use [MeOAc] as the measure of substrate present in reactor compositions when describing either carbonylation of MeOH to AcOH or MeOAc to AC2O. 

The important features of the carbonylation processes described below are summarised in Table 5.1. 

Although the stoichiometry of the original Monsanto process (Eq. (1)) does not require HjO, it operates typically at 15 % w/w HjO in the reactor, and a low stand- 

---

Some Important Features of Carbonylation Process Chemistry 1197... 

---