Conversion of ester groups to hydrocarbon
United States Patent n91 Norton 1451 Apr. 29, 1975 l l CONVERSION OF ESTER GROUPS TO HYDROCARBON [75] Inventor: RichardV.Norton,Wilmington,Del.  
 [73] Assignee: Sun Ventures Inc., St. Davids, Pa.  
 [22] Filed: Sept. 17, 1973 [21] Appl. N0.: 398.033  
 [52] US. Cl 260/465 B: 260/290 P; 260/329 R: 260/346.l R; 260/465 R; 260/668 F;  
 260/67] R; 260/67l M [51] Int. Cl C07c 15/00: (07c 121/02 [58] Field of Search 260/465 B, 465 R. 668 F. 260/671 R. 67l M [56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2.90l .504 8/l959 Aries 260/465 FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS 737,409 9/1955 United Kingdom Primary E.\&#39;uminer-Lewis Gotts Assistant E.\&#39;uminer&#39;Dolph H. Torrence Attorney. Agent, or Firm-George L. Church; Donald R. Johnson; Paul Lipsitz [57 ABSTRACT 5 Claims. No Drawings CONVERSION OF ESTER GROUPS TO HYDROCARBON The art teaches the reaction of&#39;aromati&#39;c esters, amides, and acidswith ammonia over anhydrous dehydration catalysts at elevated temperatures toform nitriles. For example, German Patent 1,279,020 discloses the conversion of methyl toluate by reaction with ammonia at 340C over a catalyst of A1 to yield toluonitrile:  
 G -c-ocH HQC NR3 (3 toc) A1203 Similarly it is reported by J. Abe (Bull Wasseda Applied Chem. Society, vol. 2l, 27-31, 1933) that a Japanese acid clay is an effective dehydrating agent for the preparation of benzonitrile from ethyl benzoate and ammonia at 350400C. Likewise Mitchell and Reid (JACS, vol. 53,321, 1951) found dehydration catalysts such as boron phosphate, alumina and silica gel to be suitable for the conversion of esters to nitriles in the presence of ammonia. Thus the prior art clearly teaches that esters are readily transformed to nitriles by their reaction with ammonia in the presence of acid dehydration catalyst.  
  It has now been unexpectedly found, however, that when the same reaction is carried out in the presence of water the products of the reaction are markedly changed and the ester group is converted to a hydrocarbon group. Thus in accord with the invention a lower alkyl ester group of an aromatic acid is converted to the lower alkyl group of the ester entity by reaction of the aromatic acid ester with ammonia over an acidic dehydration catalyst in the presence of water.  
  The lower alkyl esters of aromatic acids which may be used in the process of the invention may be selected from a wide variety of such esters and will include mono and polyesters particularly those of the benzene and naphthalene series. Included in the term aromatic acids are heterocyclic acids. This language is appropriate since heterocyclic compounds are considered to be superaromatic. This group will include the corresponding esters of nicotinic acid, thiophene acids, acids of furane and the like. It will also be understood that inert substitutes may be present such as halogen, cyano, alkyl, aryl, alkoxy, and the like. The lower alkyl function of the ester may contain from one to about six carbon atoms and thus methyl, ethyl, butyl, pentyl and hexyl esters are readily useful in the process. Typical examples of preferred operable ester starting materials are: methyl benzoate, ethyl toluate, dibutylphthalate, hexylbenzoate, dimethyl terephthalate and the like.  
  The acid catalyst useful in the process will be any one of the many acidic type dehydration catalysts which are well known in the art, such as, for example, alumina, silica gel, boron phosphate, and the like. If desired, these catalysts may be promoted with phosphoric or sulfuric acid pretreatments as is known in the art. As pointed out, however, it is essential that the reaction be carried out in the presence of water and this is readily accomplished by saturating the catalytic material with moisture prior to initiation of the reaction. Alternative ly, but less preferably, water may be included in the reaction stream, but if this technique is used, it is preferablethat the catalyst be hydrated somewhat before starting the process.  
  The process is easily carried out simply by placing the hydrated catalyst in a fixed bed and elevating its temperature to about 200 to about 500C while passing vapors of of ammonia and the aromatic acid ester over the catalyst in the system. Reaction begins after several minutes and the effluent gases are simply cooled and the product separated by conventional means. Although some by-products are frequently found in the effluent products very little of the nitrile expected from the prior art teachings is found. Where the starting material is a polycarboxylic acid ester the reaction is operable mainly on one acid ester group, the other group being converted to a nitrile in the usual manner. Thus although methyl toluate in the process of this invention will yield paraxylene, dimethyl terephthalate yields mainly toluonitrile. To illustrate this phenomenon further, the following table lists reactants and products which will be obtained.  
 coocH In order to further illustrate the invention. the following examples are given.  
 EXAMPLE 1 A stainless steel tubular reactor 1.25 X 1 inches) filled with catalyst in a vertical position is attached to a flask containing boiling dimethyl terephthalatc (280290C) through which gaseous ammonia is sparged. The resultant ammonia-dimethyltcrcphthalate gaseous stream is passed upward through the catalyst bed of approximately lo inches in length. The eflluent EXAMPLE 2 1n the manner of Example 1. but at about 500C. dimethyl terephthalate 15.7 g. 0.07 moles) reacted with ammonia (32 g. 1.88 moles) over a 3.3 hour period on alumina t l g) containing water (12 g. 0.668 moles). The mole ratio of H O&#39;.DMT is 9.9 and that of NH zDMT is 2.69.  
  At this higher temperature, but slower gas flow rate. a higher yield of p-toluonitrile is obtained with not much decrease in catalyst activity (Table 11).  
 TABLE 11 Reaction of Dimethyl Terephthalate with Ammonia on Alumina Reaction Reactor Methyl Sample Time g of Temp Benzop-Toluop-Cyant Tcrcphthalo- No. min. Sample (&#34;C) nitrile nitrile bcnzoate nitrile l 2 7 500 70. 3 29. 7 Trace Trace 2 1.3 70.0 29.7 0.0 0.3 3 0.3 71.4 28.4 0.0 Trace 4 1.9 66.1 33.0 Trace 0.8 5 2.3 69.4 29.3 0.0 1.1 6 2.5 67.4 30.2 0.0 2.1 7 200 1.7 70.6 27.2 0.0 2.3  
 gases pass from the top of the reactor to a flask immersed in wet ice. Samples are periodically removed for analysis by infrared matching of the peaks collected from a gas chromatograph.  
  In a typical run using dimethylterephthalate (DMT). alumina 1 10 g. Houdry 2008) is saturated with water (11.2 g) and charged into the reactor and heated to 250C with no gas flow. Over the next 2.0 hours. ammonia (40 g. 2.35 moles) is passed through boiling dimethyl terephthalate causing dimethyl terephthalate (18.3 g. 0.08 moles) to react at a ratio of 28.6:1; NH zDMT. The results o1 sampling through this 2.0 hour period are given in Table l.  
  The water (0.62 moles) driven from the alumina was at a mole ratio of 7.6: lDMTzH o. During this reaction period. the temperature rose from 240 to 260C; there was also a steady decrease in the available water left on the catalyst. As a consequence. one notices (Table 1) that the p-toluonitrile yield decreases and the make of benzonitrilc increases as the availability of water decreases. There is a surprisingly low yield (=272) of As can be seen from the above data. instead of getting nitrile products as is expected from the prior art. the product is p-toluonitrile with benzonitrile by product. the latter being obtained due to dealkylation under the reaction conditions.  
 EXAMPLE 3 1n the manner of Example 1 diethyl isophthalate is reacted with ammonia over a phosphoric acid treated silica gel catalyst which is pretreated with steam. p- Cyanoethyl benzene is obtained contaminated with benzonitrile and metacyanoethyl benzoate.  
 EXAMPLE 4 TPN. the process.  
 TABLE 1 Reaction of Dimethyl &#39;l&#39;erephthalate with Ammonia on Alumina Wtv I; Nitrilcs in Ellluents Reaction Reactor Meth l Sample l&#39;mie g of Temp BenzopToluo p-(unio- Terephthalo- No. t mm.) Sample tCl nitrile nitrile l cn zoale nitrile l 5.0 3.64 201 only water and DM&#39;I 2 10.0 2.32 210 78.0 20.4 Trace 1.6 15.0 1.83 241 72.5 25.8 0.2 1.7 4 20.3 1.49 2-13 (0.3 29.6 0.1 1.1 5 34.8 0.23 249 79.1 19.2 0.0 1.7 (i 45.0 1.25 253 82.0 15.8 0.0 2.2 7 62.0 0.50 259 143.14 15 4 0.0 0.8 H 90.0 0.53 258 84.5 14.21 0.0 0 3 1111.0 5.244 2m 83.9 14.7 0.0 :4  
  2. The process of claim 1 wherein the water for the 4. The process of claim 2 wherein the ester is diethyl reaction is obtained by saturating the catalyst with isophthalate and the catalyst is silica gel. moisture prior to carrying out the process. 5. The process of claim 2 wherein the ester is m- 3. The process of claim 2 where the ester is dimethyl cyanomethyl benzoate and the catalyst is alumina. terephthalate and the dehydration catalyst is alumina. 5