Liquid phase catalytic hydrogenolysis of straight-chain 1, 2-epoxyalkanes to primary alcohols was studied over nickel-phosphorus catalyst.
Propylene oxide (1) was hydrogenolyzed mainly to 1-propanol (6a) and 2-propanol (6b) accompanied with propane (8) and alcoholysis products (7) of (1). The selectvity for (6a) was 8690% under the following conditions ; 0.1 mol of (1), 100210°C, 4060 kg/cm
2 of initial hydrogen pressure and 0.12.0 g of catalyst. 1, 2-Epoxyhexene (2), 1, 2-epoxyoctane (3), 1, 2-epoxydecane (4) and 1, 2-epoxydodecane (5) were also hydrogenolyzed selectively to the corresponding primary alcohols. At 130145°C and 40 kg/cm
2, using 0.1 g of catalyst for 0.05 mol of epoxide, the products, hydrocarbon (mol%) and total alcohol (mol%), and ratio of primary to secondary alcohol were, respectively, as follows ; (2); 9.5, 90.5, 89.0 : 11.0, (3); 11.6, 88.4, 91.2 : 8.8, (4); 15.3, 84.6, 89, 6 : 10.4, (5); 11.1, 88.9, 86.3 : 13.7.
Hydrogenolysis of (2) in the presence of sodium hydroxide, triethylamine, pyridine or sodium iodide increased the amount of 2-hexanol (9b). Especially, the addition of sodium iodide increased the yield of (9b) remarkably and the formation of a little amount of 2-hexanone (11) was observed.
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