PolyHipe: A new polymeric support for heterogeneous catalytic reactions: Kinetics of hydration of cyclohexene in two- and three-phase systems over a strongly acidic sulfonated polyhipe

A novel type of highly porous polymeric monolith called PolyHipe has been applied as a support for an immobilized catalyst (sulfonic acid). Somewhat differently from a conventional packed bed where the reaction mixture flows around the porous catalytic particles, here, the reaction mixture is forced through the pores of the monolith. The kinetics of the liquid-phase hydration were measured both in a three-phase system consisting of an aqueous, an organic, and the polymer resin phase and in a two-phase system consisting of a solution of cyclohexene in aqueous sulfolane (90 mol % sulfolane) and the polymer resin phase, at a pressure of 2 MPa and temperatures between 343 and 368 K. In the three-phase system the observed conversion rates were analyzed by a three-phase reaction model with mass transfer and reaction based on the rate equation RA = k1psCA − k-1CP (with k1ps = k1*σρPH (with k1ps being the pseudo-first-order reaction rate constant of the forward reaction, k1* the idem, but applied per equivalent a...