A general integrated process for synthesizing olefin oxides.

Metal oxide solid reactants are shown to react with vicinal alkyl dibromides to selectively form olefin oxides and fully regenerable metal bromides.

An integrated process for partial oxidation of alkanes.

The partial oxidation of alkanes via bromination followed by the reaction with solid metal oxide mixtures (MO) is shown to give an array of products that can be tuned by varying the MO and the reaction conditions.

Alkane bromination revisited: "reproportionation" in gas-phase methane bromination leads to higher selectivity for CH3Br at moderate temperatures.

The reaction of methane and bromine is a mildly exothermic and exergonic example of free radical alkane activation. We show here that the reaction of methane and bromine (CH4:Br2 > or = 1) may yield either a kinetically or a thermodynamically determined bromomethane product distribution and proceeds in two main phases between 450 and 550 degrees C under ambient pressure on the laboratory time scale. This is in contrast to the highly exothermic methane fluorination or chlorination reactions, which give kinetic product distributions, and to the endergonic iodination of methane, which yields an equilibrium distribution of iodomethanes. The first phase of reaction between methane and bromine is a relatively rapid consumption of bromine to yield a kinetic methane bromination product distribution characterized by low methane conversion, low methyl bromide selectivity, and higher polybromomethane selectivity. In the second slower phase CHxBr(4-x) reproportionation leads to significantly higher methane conversion and higher methyl bromide selectivity. For methane bromination at 525 degrees C, CH4 conversion and CH3Br selectivity reach 73.5% and 69.5%, respectively, after ample (60 s) time for reproportionation. The high selectivity and simple configuration make this pathway an attractive candidate for scale-up in halogen-mediated methane partial oxidation processes.

Removal of transition metals from motor oil using ion exchange resins.

A variety of polystyrene-divinylbenzene resins functionalized with such groups as SO3H, N(CH2COOH)2, and SH were tested in the slurry batch mode for the removal of transition metals from used motor oil. Naturally occurring materials such as coal and clay were also tested. The N(CH2COOH)2 resin (Chelex 100) and the SH resin (Duolite GT-73) were found effective removing on the average 70 and 78% of metals such as Fe, Pb, Zn, Cu, Ni, and Mn, respectively. About 700 mLs of hot oil when pumped through a 37 × 0.9 cm column packed with the Duolite resin could be demetalized to the extent of about 80% if the column was first washed with hexane.