Studio di nuovi processi catalitici per la produzione di Acido Adipico

Adipic Acid (AA) is one of the most important chemicals in the actual worldwide Industrial Chemistry, because of his environmental and economical issues a lot of research challenge are open in this context. The main issue is regarding the substitution of Nitric Acid as oxidant in the last step of the industrial synthesis. This step, in fact, cause the production of various kind of nitrogen oxides that are gaseous pollutant and must be removed from the emissions. The substitution of Nitric Acid with molecular Oxygen or air as oxidant can avoid the production of nitric oxides reducing, in this way, the environmental and economic sustainability of the process. In this work is presented an alternative pathway for the synthesis of the AA. This concern a first step of oxidation with hydrogen peroxide that involve the transformation of ciclohexene into trans-1,2-cyclohexanediole than, the latter, is transformed into AA through a catalyzed oxidative cleavage with molecular Oxygen as oxidant. The first step has been already optimized by a work did in the past. This thesis is focused on the second step, here is presented an experimental work based on the study of the catalytic activity of three kind of catalyst, a Keggin heteropoliacid Mo-V, a Ru - based catalyst and an Au NP - based catalyst.