Merging Thermomorphic Solvent Systems and Organic Solvent Nanofiltration for Hybrid Catalyst Recovery in a Hydroformylation Process

The application of homogeneous transition metal catalysts offers various advantages for chemical processes, such as mild reaction conditions and high selectivity. The main drawback is the difficult recovery of these precious catalysts, so that a small loss of catalyst can cause economic insufficiency of a chemical process. Our approach for overcoming this challenge is the application of two different catalyst recovery techniques, which are combined in a so-called hybrid separation process. Here, a thermomorphic solvent system is used for the recovery of the precious rhodium catalyst in a first stage, and a subsequent organic solvent nanofiltration unit is used in a second stage.