Synthesis of fine chemicals by selective hydrogenation of unsaturated nitriles

APESTEGUIA CARLOS; TRASARTI ANDRES; SEGOBIA DARIO

Lyon

Congreso; 11th international Congress on Catalysis and Fine Chemicals (CAFC- 11); 2016

The liquid-phase hydrogenation of unsaturated nitriles is an important route to obtain unsaturated primary amines that are valuable intermediates in agrochemical, pharmaceutical, and fine chemicals industries. Nevertheless, the selective hydrogenation of the C≡N group in unsaturated nitriles is still a challenging objective in heterogeneous catalysis. In general, the hydrogenation of unsaturated nitriles may form three types of products: unsaturated amines (hydrogenation of C≡N bond), saturated nitriles (hydrogenation of C=C bond) and saturated amines (hydrogenation of C=C and C≡N bonds). Besides, in order to obtain selectively primary amines, the coupling reactions leading to secondary and tertiary amines have to be avoided. Ammonia is often employed to suppress the formation of higher amines by shifting equilibrium to the primary amine since ammonia is released in the coupling reactions leading to secondary and tertiary amines; nevertheless, the addition of ammonia entails concerns related to corrosion and disposal of spent base materials. In this work, we investigate the selective hydrogenation of cinnamonitrile (CN) to cinnamylamine (CA) on silica-supported Co, Ni, Ru and Cu metals