Kinetics of the reductive amination of 1-undecanal in thermomorphic multicomponent system

The homogenously rhodium-catalyzed reductive amination reaction of 1-undecanal was performed in two solvent systems to provide a building block for the kinetic description of the industrially relevant hydroaminomethylation. Therefore, the reductive amination was analyzed in detail by experimental, computational and simulations studies. Initially, a network analysis was carried out, which allowed a kinetic modeling including water influence. Thermodynamic data provided by Density Functional Theory calculations enabled a detailed analysis of the dependence of thermodynamic and kinetic parameters on reaction conditions. Thus, the number of free parameters that had to be determined by kinetic experiments was significantly reduced. Partial pressure, composition of the solvents, temperature as well as water influence were studied by performing dynamic experiments. Simulation results with estimated parameters were found to be in good agreement with experiments. The kinetic model allows further process development and optimization as well as the kinetic description of the hydroaminomethylation by coupling hydroformylation and reductive amination. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.