Controlling Residual Isocyanate

Isocyanates are critical building blocks for high performance polyurethane-based polymers that make up coatings, foams, adhesives, elastomers, and insulation. Concerns over exposure to residual isocyanates led to new limits for residual isocyanates in new products. Traditional analytical methods for measuring the residual isocyanate (NCO) concentration using offline sampling and analysis raise concerns. In situ monitoring with process analytical technology addresses these challenges and enables manufacturers and formulators to ensure that product quality specifications, personnel safety, and environmental regulations are met.

Measuring and understanding polymerization reactions, mechanisms, kinetics, reactivity ratios, and activation energies lead researchers to employ in situ infrared spectroscopy as a routine technique to gain comprehensive, information-rich data that is used to advance research in a shorter time frame.

Knowledge of impurity kinetics and mechanism of formation is important in determining reaction end-point in chemical and process development studies. Accurate, reproducible, and representative reactions samples are necessary for these studies.

Chemical reaction kinetics, also known as reaction kinetics, reflect rates of chemical reactions and provide a better understanding of their dependence on reaction variables. Reaction kinetic studies provide enhanced insight into reaction mechanisms. Learn how to obtain data rich information for more complete reaction kinetic information.

Continuous flow chemistry opens options with exothermic synthetic steps that are not possible in batch reactors, and new developments in flow reactor design provide alternatives for reactions that are mixing limited in batch reactors. This can often result in better product quality and higher yield.  When coupled with Process Analytical Technology (PAT), flow chemistry allows for rapid analysis, optimization, and scale-up of a chemical reaction.

Grignard reactions are one of the most important reaction classes in organic chemistry. Grignard reactions are useful for forming carbon-carbon bonds. Grignard reactions form alcohols from ketones and aldehydes, as well as react with other chemicals to form a myriad of useful compounds. Grignard reactions are performed using a Grignard reagent, which is typically a alkyl-, aryl- or vinyl- organomagnesium halide compound. To ensure optimization and safety of Grignard reactions in research, development and production, in situ monitoring and understanding reaction heat flow is important.

Hydrogenation reactions are used in the manufacturing of both bulk and fine chemicals for reducing multiple bonds to single bonds. Catalysts are typically used to promote these reactions and reaction temperature, pressure, substrate loading, catalyst loading, and agitation rate all effect hydrogen gas uptake and overall reaction performance. Thorough understanding of this energetic reaction is important and PAT technology in support of HPLC analysis ensure safe, optimized and well-characterized chemistry.

Highly reactive chemistry is a terminology used to describe chemical reactions that are particularly challenging to handle and develop due to the potentially hazardous and/or energetic nature of the reactants, intermediates and products that are present during synthesis. These chemistries often involve highly exothermic reactions which require specialized equipment or extreme operating conditions (such as low temperature) to ensure adequate control. Ensuring safe operating conditions, minimizing human exposure, and gaining the maximum amount of information from each experiment are key factors in successfully designing and scaling-up highly reactive chemistries.

Many processes require reactions to be run under high pressure. Working under pressure is challenging and collecting samples for offline analysis is difficult and time consuming. A change in pressure could affect reaction rate, conversion and mechanism as well as other process parameters plus sensitivity to oxygen, water, and associated safety issues are common problems.

Hydroformylation, or oxo synthesis/process, is important for the production of olefins to aldehydes and aldehydes from alkenes. Hydroformylation reactions are performed at high pressure and can be challenging to sample due to the extreme reaction conditions, as well as the toxic, flammable, and reactive raw materials and reagents.

Catalysts create an alternative path to increase the speed and outcome of a reaction, so a thorough understanding of the reaction kinetics is important. Not only does that provide information about the rate of the reaction, but also provides insight into the mechanism of the reaction. There are two types of catalytic reactions: heterogeneous and homogeneous. Heterogeneous is when the catalyst and reactant exist in two different phases. Homogeneous is when the catalyst and the reactant are in the same phase..

One of the four major classes of chemical reactions, synthesis reactions are represented by important examples in organic synthesis, catalyzed chemistry, polymerizations and inorganic/organometallic chemistry. In the simplest case, a synthesis reaction occurs when two molecules combine to form a third, more complex product molecule. Often, synthesis reactions are more complex and require a thorough understanding of the kinetics and mechanisms of the underlying chemistry, as well as carefully controlled reaction conditions.

Design of Experiments (DoE) requires experiments to be conducted under well-controlled and reproducible conditions in chemical process optimization. Chemical synthesis reactors are designed to perform DoE investigations ensuring high quality data.

Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy For Real-Time Monitoring Of Chemical Reactions

Reaction mechanisms describe the successive steps at the molecular level that take place in a chemical reaction. Reaction mechanisms cannot be proven, but rather postulated based on empirical experimentation and deduction. In situ FTIR spectroscopy provides information to support reaction mechanisms hypotheses.

Organometallic Synthesis, or Organometallic Chemistry, refers to the process of creating organometallic compounds, and is among the most researched areas in chemistry. Organometallic compounds are frequently used in fine chemical syntheses and to catalyze reactions. In situ Infrared and Raman spectroscopy are among the most powerful analytical methods for the study of organometallic compounds and syntheses.

Oligonucleotide synthesis is the chemical process by which nucleotides are specifically linked to form a desired sequenced product. The repetitive cyclic nature of the synthesis used in producing these biopolymers requires careful control of reaction variables, as well as step-wise reaction tracking and purity assurance to ensure that the desired sequence is attained. PAT methodology supports the development and production of these important biomolecules.

Alkylation is the process by when an alkyl group is added to a substrate molecule. There are many different alkylating reagents and types of alkylating reactions, and thus it is a widely used technique in organic chemistry. Alkylation is important for manufacturing in the petroleum and commodity chemicals industries, as well as in medicine, since many chemotherapy drugs are alkylating agents. The breadth of reaction types, conditions, and the economic importance of alkylation necessitates thorough understanding, control, and monitoring of alkylation reactions.

Epoxides are three member ethers having a highly strained ring structure containing two carbons and an oxygen. Because of the strain in this structure, epoxides are quite reactive and represent a valuable functional group for performing a variety of reactions. Due to this, epoxides are useful in polymer, pharmaceutical, and fine chemical syntheses.

The Suzuki and related cross-coupling reactions use transition metal catalysts, such as palladium complexes, to form C-C bonds between alkyl and aryl halides with various organic compounds. These catalyzed reactions are widely used methods to efficiently increase molecular complexity in pharmaceutical, polymer, and natural product syntheses. PAT technology is used to investigate cross-coupled reactions with regard to kinetics, mechanisms, thermodynamics, and the effect of reaction variables on performance and safety.

Lithiation and organolithium reactions are key in the development of complex pharmaceutical compounds. Also, organolithium compounds act as initiators in certain polymerization reactions. The exceptional reactivity of organolithium reagents result from the strong polarity of the C-Li bond, making these reactions and family of compounds among the most important in industrial applications. In situ ReactIR technology has proven useful for investigating lithiations and organolithium reactions in both batch and continuous flow applications.