The Studies Of Nitriles Catalytic Hydrogenation In Two-Phase System

The catalytic hydrogenation of nitriles has important role in organic synthesis and fine chemical field. At the present time, the two-phase catalytic system which use water-soluble organometallic complexes as catalysts is one of the advanced study fields in green chemistry. After studied the mechanism of nitriles catalytic hydrogenation and the presented catalytic systems, we advocated the two-phase catalytic system into the catalytic hydrogenation of nitriles first. Usually, the target product of nitriles catalytic hydrogenation is amine, but in our system, the water is not only medium but also reactant, and so, nitriles can be converted into alcohols under hydrogention directly.We studied the catalytic hydrogenation of fatty nitriles and aromatic nitriles. As a strong coordinative group, the activation of cyano is rather difficult, In our studies, the resonance of phenyl ring with cyano is benefit for the activation of cyano. Therefore, the aromatic nitriles can be converted into the primary alcohols easily, the conversion of benzonitrile can up to 99% and with the selectivity 99.9%. Without the activation effect such as resonance, the fatty nitriles don't occur reactions. We studied the reaction conditions effect of temperature, H2 pressure, reaction times, TPPTS/Ru molar ratio on the hydrogenation. Rather high TPPTS/Ru molar ratio is apreciated. It can promoted the produce of phosphine ligand coordinated catalytic active complex and contain high catalytic activation & selectivity by TPPTS contesting with cyano to reduce the stability of cyano coordination to ruthenium.The hydrogenation of α,β-unsaturated nitrile occurs only on the C=C double bond in the two-phase system. The hydrogenation of acylonitrile produces propionitrile, only. It is a useful method to preparation propionitrile. The effect of reaction conditions is studied.In the two-phase catalytic system, we realize the conversion of proper nitriles to alcohols and α,β-unsaturated nitrile to saturated nitriles accordingly. It has industry prospect for the easily separation of catalyst with product, and enrich the hydrogenation studies of cyano, a vasatile synton in organic chemistry.