Reppe Chemistry

The term designates that phase of acetylene chemistry involving the use of acetylene at high pressures in the presence of suitable catalysts to carry out the fundamental reactions of vinylation, ethynylation, cyclopolymerization and carbonylation as developed from 1928 onward by Walter Reppe and associates in the I. G. Farbenindustrie laboratories in Ludwigshafen:

J. W. Copenhaver, M. H. Bigelow, Acetylene and Carbon Monoxide Chemistry (New York, 1949) p 246; W. Reppe, Acetylene Chemistry, U.S. Dept. Commerce PB 18852-S (1949); Neue Entwicklungen auf dem Gebiet des Acetylens und Kohlenoxyds (Berlin 1949); H. Kröper, Houben-Weyl 4/II, 413-422 (1955); D. W. F. Hardie, Acetylene, Manufacture and Uses (New York, 1965) p 67; L. F. Fieser, M. Fieser, Reagents for Organic Synthesis (New York, 1967) pp 61, 183, 185, 190, 519, 720, 722, 723. Review of carbonylations: A. Mullen, “Carbonylations Catalyzed by Metal Carbonyls-Reppe Reactions” in New Syntheses with Carbon Monoxide, J. Falbe, Ed. (Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1980) pp 243-308. Mechanistic study of cyclooctatetraene synthesis: R. E. Colborn, K. P. C. Vollhardt, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 108, 5470 (1986); C. J. Lawrie et al., Organometallics 8, 2274 (1989).