First Wacker process

The first Wacker process is a historical chemical-industrial process for the production of acetaldehyde by hydration of acetylene . The process was developed by Wacker-Chemie in 1913. After large amounts of ethylene were available in the 1960s , the process was replaced by the Wacker-Hoechst process .

history

The underlying reaction of the first Wacker process, the addition of water to acetylene, was discovered in 1898 by Hugo Erdmann and Paul Köthner. A vinyl alcohol was formed as an intermediate , which is rearranged in acetaldehyde.

${\displaystyle \mathrm {C_{2}H_{2}+H_{2}O\rightarrow CH_{3}CHO} }$

Between 1910 and 1913, Dr. Martin Mugdan, the head of the Consortium for Electrochemical Industry , on the industrial production of acetaldehyde. The development was finally ended in 1913 and in the first Wacker process acetaldehyde was obtained by adding water to acetylene under mercury sulfate / sulfuric acid catalysis.

The process was carried out at a temperature of 90 to 95 ° C. The metallic mercury was reoxidized with iron (III) sulfate . The iron (II) sulfate formed was reoxidized with nitric acid in a further step . Unreacted acetylene was recycled. As early as 1914, the Consortium patented the process for the oxidation of acetaldehyde to acetic acid using manganese (II) acetate as a catalyst. The process was carried out by Wacker-Chemie in its Burghausen plant until 1968.

${\displaystyle \mathrm {2\ CH_{3}CHO+O_{2}\longrightarrow 2\ CH_{3}COOH} }$

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dmitry A. Ponomarev, Sergey M. Shevchenko: Hydration of Acetylene: A 125th Anniversary. In: Journal of Chemical Education. 84, 2007, p. 1725, doi : 10.1021 / ed084p1725 .
2. ↑ https://www.wacker.com/cms/de/100years/wacker_100/pioneers/mugdan.jsp
3. ↑ ^{a b} People • Markets • Molecules: The Wacker Chemie Success Formula 1914 - 2014, pp. 38–75 ( pdf ) .