Acceleration of lean aqueous hydroformylation in an innovative jet loop reactor concept

5 years ago

Acceleration of lean aqueous hydroformylation in an innovative jet loop reactor concept

The lean biphasic aqueous hydroformylation without chemical additives of the long chain olefin 1-octene using the simple ligand triphenyl trisulfonate sodium salt was investigated in an innovative jet loop reactor on miniplant scale. This elaborate reactor type offers a unique mixing characteristic and is optimised in terms of mechanical energy transfer into the reaction medium through a jet nozzle and organic phase volume fraction. Both variables are important factors in the emulsification of two immiscible liquids. It is subsequently compared to a standard stirred reactor which was also individually optimised. Both concepts showed individual advantages in terms of productivity and catalytic activity. While the jet loop reactor reached high turnover frequencies of 7640h⁻¹ the stirred tank reactor showed high space time yields of up to 12.6·10⁻⁵ kmolm⁻³ s⁻¹. At very low amounts of dispersed aqueous catalyst phase even very high catalytic activity (TOF=10,960h⁻¹) was observed in the jet loop reactor. High reactivity could also be preserved in a long time run leading to a total turnover number of 76,500. The jet loop reactor enabled high mass transfer rates for the substrate gases of up to 0.28s⁻¹ for H2 and 0.21s⁻¹ for CO resulting in a mass transfer multiple times faster than the obtained reaction rates. To increase regio-selectivity the bidentate ligand sulfoxanthphos was applied which increased the regio-selectivity up to l:b=53 but reduced catalytic activity.

Publisher URL: www.sciencedirect.com/science

DOI: S1385894717313001