Process for Alkane-Group Dehydrogenation with Organometallic Catalysts

Category: Engineering and Physical Sciences

Reference Number: 00163

Description

Researchers at the University of California and the University of Hawaii have synthesized a new family of novel, organometallic dehydrogenation catalysts exhibiting exceptional thermal stability and high turnover rates. These catalysts have been successfully demonstrated in homogeneous reaction systems and also have potential for use in heterogeneous catalysis.

Patent Information
US Patent #5780701 issued July 14, 1998

Applications

These catalysts have the potential to improve a wide variety of dehydrogenation processes. The petrochemical industry relies upon such processes to produce organic chemicals for a large number of chemical and polymer products including solvents, monomers, and precursors for chemical syntheses.

Main Advantages

These new catalysts offer several advantages over existing organometallic catalysts and have the potential to improve the efficiency of dehydrogenation processes.

• Catalyst does not degrade even after a week at 200°C, whereas other organometallic catalysts exhibit half-lives of less than 12 hours at that temperature;
• Catalyst is tolerant of functional groups;
• High turnover rates are achieved at lower temperatures than conventional dehydrogenation reactions;
• High turnover rates are achieved without photoirradiation, high pressures of hydrogen, or high concentrations of hydrogen-acceptor compounds.

Inventor(s)

Dr. Craig Jensen

College of Natural Sciences
Chemistry Department

Contact Information

For licensing information, please contact Dick Cox at rcox@hawaii.edu

For all other inquiries, please write to:

Office of Technology Transfer & Economic Development
University of Hawai’i
2800 Woodlawn Drive, Suite 280
Honolulu, HI 96822