Turnover frequency carbon monoxide hydrogenation

Carbon monoxide oxidation is a relatively simple reaction, and generally its structurally insensitive nature makes it an ideal model of heterogeneous catalytic reactions. Each of the important mechanistic steps of this reaction, such as reactant adsorption and desorption, surface reaction, and desorption of products, has been studied extensively using modem surface-science techniques.17 The structure insensitivity of this reaction is illustrated in Figure 10.4. Here, carbon dioxide turnover frequencies over Rh(l 11) and Rh(100) surfaces are compared with supported Rh catalysts.3 As with CO hydrogenation on nickel, it is readily apparent that, not only does the choice of surface plane matters, but also the size of the active species.18-21 Studies of this system also indicated that, under the reaction conditions of Figure 10.4, the rhodium surface was covered with CO. This means that the reaction is limited by the desorption of carbon monoxide and the adsorption of oxygen. 

Propene hydroformylation can lead to products with a linearity ranging from 60 to 95%, depending on the phosphine concentration. At very high phosphine concentration the rate is low, but the linearity achieves its maximum value. Low ligand concentrations, with concomitant low linearities, will give turnover frequencies in the order of 10,000 mol mol-1 h 1 at 10 bar and 90°C. In the presence of carbon monoxide this rhodium catalyst has no activity for hydrogenation and the selectivity, based on starting material, is virtually 100%. The butanal produced contains no alcohol and can be converted both to butanol and to other products, as desired. 

The turnover frequencies measured at different temperatures were comparable to those found for hydroformylations using other strategies [1,3,33,35]. To develop the kinetic model, the effects of the linalool and the catalyst concentration and of the total carbon monoxide and hydrogen pressure on the outcome of the hydroformylation were investigated. In all cases, the reaction rate was enhanced by a first-order dependence. The results were in good agreement with the calculated model. The activation energy was found to be 14.5 kcal mol h... 

Note that this is the reaction rate or activity. However, this definition takes into account the reaction medium, be it volume, surface, or interface, and not exactly the active sites. Not all mass or surface is active, but part of its outer surface has active sites, which are truly the sites where the chemical reaction occurs. Therefore, rj in fact represents the apparent rate. An important example of reaction that allows to differentiate the apparent from the true rate is the hydrogenation of carbon monoxide to form methane, which is conducted with different catalysts. With iron and cobalt catalysts, the rate per unit of mass of catalyst, used as reference, has shown controversial values. The activity of the catalysts in the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis to form hydrocarbons would decrease according to the order Fe > Co > Ni. However, when the rate per active site was defined, the order of activity was different, i.e., Co > Fe > Ni. This controversy was resolved by Boudart, who defined the intrinsic activity, i.e., the rate per active site. To make it more clear, the turnover frequency (TOF) was defined. Thus, the intrinsic activity is determined, knowing the active sites, i.e. ... 

---