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Ethylene (IUPAC name: ethene) is a hydrocarbon which has the formula C 2 H 4 or H 2 C=CH 2.It is a colourless, flammable gas with a faint "sweet and musky" odour when pure. [7] It is the simplest alkene (a hydrocarbon with carbon–carbon double bonds).
The Wacker reaction was first reported by Smidt et al. [3] [4] [5] The development of the chemical process now known as the Wacker process began in 1956 at Wacker Chemie. [6] At the time, many industrial compounds were produced from acetylene, derived from calcium carbide, an expensive and environmentally unfriendly technology.
The reaction is an example of cross metathesis. The utility of the reaction is driven by the low cost of ethylene as a reagent and its selectivity. It produces compounds with terminal alkene functional groups (α-olefins), which are more amenable to other reactions such as polymerization and hydroformylation. The general reaction equation is:
An ethylene plant, once running, does not need to import steam to drive its steam turbines. A typical world scale ethylene plant (about 1.5 billion pounds (680 KTA) of ethylene per year) uses a 45,000 horsepower (34,000 kW) cracked gas compressor, a 30,000 hp (22,000 kW) propylene compressor, and a 15,000 hp (11,000 kW) ethylene compressor.
The products produced in the reaction depend on the composition of the feed, the hydrocarbon-to-steam ratio, and on the cracking temperature and furnace residence time. Light hydrocarbon feeds such as ethane, LPGs or light naphtha give product streams rich in the lighter alkenes, including ethylene, propylene, and butadiene.
In ETP, ethylene is dimerized to 1-butene, which is isomerized to 2-butenes. The 2-butenes are then subjected to metathesis with ethylene. Rhenium- and molybdenum-containing heterogeneous catalysis are used. Nowadays, only the "reverse" reaction is practiced, i.e., the conversion of ethylene and 2-butene to propylene: [2]
The chief use of ethane is the production of ethylene (ethene) by steam cracking. Steam cracking of ethane is fairly selective for ethylene, while the steam cracking of heavier hydrocarbons yields a product mixture poorer in ethylene and richer in heavier alkenes (olefins), such as propene (propylene) and butadiene, and in aromatic hydrocarbons.
The reaction produces linear primary alcohols with an even numbered carbon chain. The process uses an aluminum compound to oligomerize ethylene and allow the resulting alkyl group to be oxygenated. The usually targeted products are fatty alcohols, which are otherwise derived from natural fats and oils.