• Researchers devise cheaper, faster way t

    From ScienceDaily@1:317/3 to All on Wed May 4 22:30:48 2022
    Researchers devise cheaper, faster way to continuously produce amines


    Date:
    May 4, 2022
    Source:
    North Carolina State University
    Summary:
    Chemical engineering researchers have developed a faster, less
    expensive technique for producing hindered amines -- a class
    of chemicals used as building blocks in products ranging from
    pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals to detergents and organic light
    emitting diodes.



    FULL STORY ========================================================================== Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a faster,
    less expensive technique for producing hindered amines -- a class of
    chemicals used as building blocks in products ranging from pharmaceuticals
    and agrochemicals to detergents and organic light emitting diodes.


    ========================================================================== "Hindered amines are used in a tremendous variety of products, but all
    of the existing techniques for producing these amines are complicated
    and expensive," says Milad Abolhasani, corresponding author of a paper on
    the new technique and an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State.

    "We set out to develop a better method for synthesizing these hindered
    amines, and we were successful." One of the less expensive techniques
    for producing hindered amines is hydroaminomethylation, or HAM. However,
    the chemical industry has largely avoided using HAM, because there are
    too many ways things can go wrong - - leaving producers with undesirable chemicals instead of the functionalized amines they were trying to
    make. Researchers have improved the HAM process over the years. But
    all of the techniques for avoiding undesirable byproducts have meant
    extending the timeframe of the HAM process, so that it takes hours to
    perform all of the necessary reactions. Until now.

    "We've developed a HAM technique that makes use of continuous flow
    reactor technologies to produce hindered amines more efficiently,"
    Abolhasani says.

    "Our HAM process takes less than 30 minutes in most cases. The only
    products are hindered amines and water. And we are able to recycle the
    primary catalyst, rhodium/N-Xantphos, which further drives down costs."
    The success of the new technique is made possible by two things. First,
    by using a continuous flow reactor that allows for continuous flow of
    both gases and liquids in a segmented flow format, the researchers were
    able to make the kinetics of the reaction far more efficient. Second,
    the new technique makes use of a co-catalyst -- fluorinated benzoic
    acid -- which reduces the amount of energy needed to perform some of
    the necessary reactions in the HAM process.

    Ultimately, this technique drives down the cost of producing hindered
    amines using inexpensive feedstock, allowing users to produce them more
    quickly and with no toxic byproducts.

    "By designing a cooperative catalyst system, we've demonstrated that
    the rate of the HAM reactions in our system can be 70 times higher
    than the existing state-of-the-art processes," says Malek Ibrahim,
    first author of the paper and a former postdoctoral researcher at
    NC State. "This process is also a good example for how flow chemistry
    platforms can improve catalyst turnover frequency, which is increasingly important as the price of rhodium catalysts goes up." The new technique
    is particularly attractive for decentralized manufacturing operations,
    since the small footprint of the necessary equipment and its scalability
    allows users to efficiently produce hindered amines on site and on demand.

    "What's more, the same technique can also be used to produce enamines --
    which are other chemical building blocks -- on demand, simply by tuning
    the solvents we use in the flow reactor," Ibrahim says. "You can literally switch back and forth between producing amines and enamines without having
    to stop the production process, since the only thing you're changing is
    the solvent mixture." The researchers have filed a provisional patent
    on the new technique and are now looking for industrial partners to put
    the technique into widespread use.

    The work was done with start-up funding from NC State.


    ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
    North_Carolina_State_University. Original written by Matt Shipman. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


    ========================================================================== Journal Reference:
    1. Malek Y. S. Ibrahim, Milad Abolhasani. Recyclable cooperative
    catalyst
    for accelerated hydroaminomethylation of hindered amines in a
    continuous segmented flow reactor. Nature Communications, 2022;
    13 (1) DOI: 10.1038/ s41467-022-30175-0 ==========================================================================

    Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/05/220504082615.htm

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