HYSINANO

The hydrosilylation of olefins, industrially catalysed by a platinum complex, requires a high annual investment in this noble metal, because it is lost with the reaction products. The objective of this project is to study two ways to overcome this problem: either heterogenizing the platinum to maintain it durably in the reactor, or replacing the platinum by a more economic catalyst, with no impact to the environment. The first part corresponds to the work initiated at the end of HEXOSIC project, One of the objectives of this project was to use heterogeneous catalysts in a silicon carbide continuous reactor. However, the use of commercial heterogeneous catalysts in continuous reactors was found unsuitable, mainly because of the platinum leaching, Besides, a new synthesis method was developped to avoid leaching. The optimisation of this preparation will be studied (hydrophobicity, pore size...) as well as the deposition of the catalyst as a thin layer on structured substrates. Doping the platinum with another metal will also be studied as a way to reduce the platinum outstanding. In a second more exploratory part, the total replacement of the platinum by a cheap metal with no impact to the environment will be studied. The methodology will consist in the synthesis of nanoparticles (iron, copper...). The catalytic activity of all the synthesized catalysts will be measured through the model reaction of 1-octene hydrosilyltaion in a semi-batch reactor. The best catalysts will be used in a continuous reactor to evaluate their lifetime and their potential productivity. According to the catalyst nature, its preliminary shaping/immobilisation on substrates will be studied. Finally, the catalysts will also be evaluated in other hydrosilylation reactions. For confidentiality reasons, the methodology foreseen to immobilise the nanoparticles on supports can not be detailed here.