Electrolytic recovery of cobalt oxo catalysts

摘要

According to one embodiment of the improved process of this invention, dicobalt octacarbonyl is produced in liquid medium by subjecting an aqueous solution of a tetracarbonylcobaltate salt in the presence of a solvent for dicobalt octacarbonyl to an externally applied voltage and electrical current at a magnitude and for a time sufficient to convert at least a portion of the tetracarbonylcobaltate anion to dicobalt octacarbonyl which is efficiently extracted into said solvent, thereby producing a solvent phase which can be recovered and passed to a cobalt-catalyzed olefin hydroformylation reaction zone as the source of at least a portion of the catalyst and olefin required in the olefin hydroformylation reaction to form the corresponding aldehydes. It has been surprisingly found that such a two-phase electrolysis can be performed to efficiently provide high yields of dicobalt octacarbonyl while substantially avoiding the fouling problems associated with aqueous-phase electrolysis.