SYNTHESIS OF ESTERS BASED ON OXIDATION PRODUCTS OF CYCLOHEXANE

Cyclohexane oxidation is object of this research. One of the most problematic points of this process is low conversion of raw material and low selectivities for aim-products at conversions higher than 4%. One of the reasons for this is absence of modern effective catalytic systems that could increase mentioned indexes. One of the directions of solving these problems is the creation of a technology for the integrated use of the obtained oxidation products on the basis of the developed new effective catalytic systems, which will enable to increase the selectivity of the process. Perspective is the study of catalytic systems based on organic salts of valence metals and their further modification by introducing additives of different nature/

One of successful directions in search of effective catalysts for this process is creation of binary catalytic systems with use of active oxygen-containing additives and industrial catalyst – cobalt naphtenate. During this research we used oxygen-CN-containing compound – Bis-2-cianethyl ether.

We determined positive impact of researched oxygen-containing additive at main technical-economical indexes of the process of cyclohexane oxidation – selectivity for oxidation products and ratio of aim-products. Selectivity for aim products increases at 3–4 % in comparison with oxidation at industrial catalyst and remains maximal– 73 % at conversion two times higher than industrial – 7,3 %. It is determined that in presence of researched binary catalytic system at conversion higher than 4% quantity of formed acids increases to 20,3 %. Therefore we propose method of utilization of formed acids by etherification with alcohol. The esterification of the aqueous layer of acids in the excess of n-butanol in the presence of an ion exchange resin KU-2 was carried out at boiling point of the water-n-butanol azeotropic formed. Subsequently, the esters obtained can be used as plasticizers for polymers. In the case of esterification with lower alcohols, the esters obtained can be separated at boiling point and used as raw material for the allocation of individual acids/

This provides opportunity of wider use of all products of cyclohexane oxidation. In comparison with similar known methods oxidation in presence of binary catalytic system: cobalt naphtenate – Bis-2-cianethyl ether allows decrease of production cost.