Highly integrated reactor separator systems for the recycling of homogeneous catalysts

Homogeneous transition metal catalysts allow highly selective conversion of reactants at mild reaction conditions. Main drawback of this catalytic method is a difficult recovery of the catalyst, dissolved in the reaction phase. One recovery method is the decrease of the temperature in the reaction phase in order to generate two phases in which the product and the catalyst show different solubilities. This is known as thermomorphic multicomponent solvent (TMS) system. Another method to separate the catalyst directly from the reaction phase is the application of the organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN). For both recovery methods proper operating windows of reaction and separation are necessary to reach a high selectivity and yield in the reaction on one hand and prevent catalyst loss through efficient separation on the other. Only the combination of suitable solvents, reaction conditions and separation methods guarantee a successful performance of the whole catalytic system. In this work, the method for investigating the interactions between reaction and separation dependent on the different selected unit operations are developed. The application of the TMS system DMF/n-decane and the catalyst separation within the hydroformylation reaction is discussed as a case study of industrial interest. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.