L. A. Gerritsen, J. Herman, W. Klut
Aug 1, 1980
Citations
0
Influential Citations
23
Citations
Journal
Journal of Molecular Catalysis
Abstract
Abstract Hydridocarbonyltris(triphenylphosphine)rhodium(I), dissolved in triphenylphosphine and capillary condensed into the pores of a support, is applied in the catalytic heterogeneous hydroformylation of ethylene and propylene. Catalysts with triphenylphosphine in the liquid and in the solid state, do not show any difference in apparent activation energy and catalytic activity. From this it follows that we are dealing with a case of heterogeneous catalysis, i.e. that only the rhodium complexes at the gas-triphenylphosphine phase boundary are involved in the reaction. The inactivity of the rhodium complexes outside the phase boundary is most likely due to high coordination of these complexes with free triphenylphosphine molecules, and to the very low solubility of carbon monoxide in triphenylphosphine, and not to an extreme liquid-phase diffusional retardation of the rate of reaction.