Continuous hydrogenation of organic compounds in supercritical fluids

Abstract

A small flow reactor (5 ml volume) is used for continuous hydrogenation in supercritical CO 2 or propane with polysiloxane-supported noble metal catalysts; a wide range of organic functionalities can be hydrogenated with good throughput (up to 1200 ml h - 1 in favourable cases) and the various parameters (temperature, pressure, concentration of H 2 , etc.) can be controlled independently to optimise the selectivity for a particular product.