Abstract
Adiponitrile and azelanitrile were electrochemically hydrogenated to their corresponding aminonitriles in a divided H-cell using Raney nickel powder as the cathode material. The effects of current, temperature, and solvent/supporting electrolyte composition on product selectivities were investigated. Syntheses of the fully hydrogenated diamine by-product increased with increasing current and solution temperature. When a 0.8 M adiponitrile/alcohol/water/ammonium actetate electrolyte was hydrogenated at temperatures of 35–45°C, 6-aminocapronitrile selectivities in the range of 79–97% and current efficiencies of 50–60% were obtained. The optimum applied current was 60 mA for each 2.5 g of catalyst (an apparent current density of 4.8 mA cm−2). For the case of azelanitrile, reaction selectivities for the partially hydrogenated 9-aminononanenitrile product ranged from 80–93%.
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Song, Y., Pintauro, P.N. The electrochemical synthesis of aminonitriles I. H-cell studies with adiponitrile and azelanitrile. J Appl Electrochem 21, 21–27 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01103824
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01103824