(509e) Selective Chain Propagation of Ethene to Propene on Silica Supported Cobalt Catalyst

Several attempts for chain propagation of ethene to propene, namely, ETP, and olefin metathesis have been entirely on Mo and W based catalysts. In these catalyst systems, metathesis active catalyst is not always active for the chain elongation but that catalyst, which shows activity for the ETP, also promotes the metathesis. Unfortunately, much less attention has been paid for trial of the inverse phenomenon, that is, the selective ETP with a less activity of the metathesis. In this work, when ethene was solely contacted on silica supported cobalt catalyst, the fraction of C3 was formed readily whereas the propene metathesis was suppressed ca. 1/6 fold as much as that in the case using Mo based catalyst.