Hydrazine - Synthesis and Manufacture

Synthesis and Manufacture

Theodor Curtius synthesized free hydrazine for the first time in 1889 via a circuitous route.

Hydrazine is produced in the Olin Raschig process from sodium hypochlorite (the active ingredient in many bleaches) and ammonia, a process announced in 1907. This method relies on the reaction of chloramine with ammonia:

NH2Cl + NH3 → H2N-NH2 + HCl

Another route of hydrazine synthesis involves oxidation of urea with sodium hypochlorite:

(H2N)2C=O + NaOCl + 2 NaOH → N2H4 + H2O + NaCl + Na2CO3

Hydrazine can be synthesized from ammonia and hydrogen peroxide in the Pechiney-Ugine-Kuhlmann process, according to the following formula:

2NH3 + H2O2 → H2N-NH2 + 2H2O

In the Atofina–PCUK cycle, hydrazine is produced in several steps from acetone, ammonia, and hydrogen peroxide. Acetone and ammonia first react to give the imine followed by oxidation with hydrogen peroxide to the oxaziridine, a three-membered ring containing carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen, followed by ammonolysis to the hydrazone, a process that couples two nitrogen atoms. This hydrazone reacts with one more equivalent of acetone, and the resulting acetone azine is hydrolyzed to give hydrazine, regenerating acetone. Unlike the Raschig process, this process does not produce salt. The PCUK stands for Produits Chimiques Ugine Kuhlmann, a French chemical manufacturer.

Hydrazine can also be produced via the so-called ketazine and peroxide processes.

Read more about this topic:  Hydrazine

Famous quotes containing the words synthesis and/or manufacture:

    “The invention of photography provided a radically new picture-making process—a process based not on synthesis but on selection. The difference was a basic one. Paintings were made—constructed from a storehouse of traditional schemes and skills and attitudes—but photographs, as the man on the street put, were taken.”
    —Jean Szarkowski (b. 1925)

    “The great cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than the furnace blast, is all in very deed for this—that we manufacture everything there except men.”
    —John Ruskin (1819–1900)