PROCESS FOR PRODUCING HIGH PURITY STRAIGHT CHAIN ALUMINUM ALKYL COMPOUNDS FROM OLEFIN MIXTURES CONTAINING VINYL OLEFINS AND NONVINYL OLEFINS

1332354 Trialkyl aluminiums; alcohols from aluminium alkoxides ETHYL CORP 28 Sept 1970 [29 Sept 1969] 46129/70 Headings C2C and C2J [Also in Division C5] Trialkyl aluminium compounds are prepared from a feed mixture of C 4-30 olefins predominating in straight-chain (vinyl) α-olefins but containing other olefin isomers including 2- branched-1-(or vinylidene) olefins by contacting the mixture with an acid-type catalyst and selectively isomerizing at least a part of the vinylidene olefins to trialkylethylenes and reacting the resultant olefin mixture under displacement conditions with a trialkyl aluminium having alkyl groups different in chain length from the olefins of the mixture to form a mixture of trialkyl aluminiums having predominantly n-alkyl groups corresponding to the vinyl olefins of the treated mixture. The catalyst may be in a solid bed or slurry and may be silica gel, silicated alumina, crystalline alumina silicates, activated alumina, an acid clay such as montmorillonite, attapulgite, modenite or diatomaceous earth, an acid-form ion exchange resin, H 2 SO 4 or H 3 PO 4 . The trialkyl aluminium reactant is normally (i-Bu) 3 Al but others are specified and the usual vinyl olefin : Al reactant mole ratio is from 3 : 1 to 10 : 1. In Example 1, the feed mixture contains decenes, dodecenes, tetradecenes and hexadecenes. The trialkyl aluminium compounds prepared as above may be oxidized to aluminium alkoxides which may be hydrolysed to alcohols. In Example 3, 1-dodecanol, 1-tetradecanol, 1- hexadecanol and 1-octadecanol are prepared from trialkyl aluminiums prepared by displacement between (i-Bu) 3 Al and an olefin mixture obtained by chain growth with ethylene on (C 2 H 5 ) 3 Al followed by ethylene displacement and selective isomerization. The products of Example 1 (see feed mixture above) are also stated to be oxidized and hydrolysed to alcohols.