Abstract. Water-soluble catalysts offer significant advances in homogeneous catalysis: the "heterogenization" of the catalyst in a second, immiscible liquid phase immobilises the catalyst phase, thus combining the advantages of heterogeneous catalysis, e.g. long lifetime, easy separation of product from catalyst, with those of the homogeneous type, namely, defined species of catalyst, gentle reaction conditions, high activity and selectivity. The first successful large-scale application of aqueous catalysts is the 0x0 process of Ruhrchemie/RhGne-Poulenc, using a HRh(CO)[P-(3-sulfophenyl-Na),], catalyst, dissolved in water. This survey reviews 10 years' experience of this process against the background of biphasic catalyses, especially the way in which this environmental benign technique, which is highly economic and thus very environmentally sound, reduces pollution.
Years of Hydroformulation -Oxo Reactors and Oxo Plants of Ruhrchemie AG and Oxea GmbH from 1938 to 2013The hydroformulation reaction, also known as oxo synthesis or Roelen reaction, is the atom-efficient and metal-catalyzed addition of the constituents of synthesis gas, H 2 and CO, to the double bonds of alkenes. This reaction has been discovered in 1938 by Otto Roelen in the laboratories of the chemical company Ruhrchemie AG. After filing the patent application efforts to scale up the process to technical scale have been started. However, they have only partly been successful for the plants of the Ruhrchemie AG Oberhausen and its cooperation partner I.G. Farbenindustrie AG due to the difficult circumstances. After World War II the Ruhrchemie process based on cobalt catalysts and the Ruhrchemie/Rhône-Poulenc process as the first important aqueous two-phase processes with rhodium catalysts became the most important homogenously catalyzed chemical processes.
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