HYDRAZINE Think of it as a versatile, effective, efficient reducing agent, too.
Maybe you already know why hydrazine has proved its worth in such diverse applications as rocket fuels, plastics, herbicides and pesticides. It's what you may not know about hydrazine's properties, however, that could pay off for you. (And as the country's leading merchant marketer of hydrazine, we have an unabashedly selfish motive in wanting chemists to know more about this incredibly versatile material.) Consider, for a moment, hydrazine's potential as a reducing agent. In terms of strength, by-product formation and weight, hydrazine is one of the most effective and efficient reductants you can use. It's stronger than zinc, but doesn't form metal salt by-products in the process. It contains four equivalents per mole, so it gives you more for your money. For organic reductions, it has other intriguing properties — like selectivity and stereospecif icity — that can be made to pay off in the plant as well as in the lab. Hydrazine and its derivatives are already in use in many interesting applications. A quick look at a few of them may stimulate you to investigate other related possibilities.
Getting rid of the unwanted Probably hydrazine's best-known reducing application is to scavenge oxygen from boilers and hot water systems. If, rather than oxygen, you want to get rid of halogens, hydrazine is also a superb scavenger of bromine, chlorine and iodine. (We make use of this property ourselves, to remove traces of chlorine from sulfuric acid in our chlor/alkali operations.)
If you want to get rid of chromâtes and other heavy metals in effluents, hydrazine has proved effective. And if you want to inhibit peroxide formation in certain fluids, hydrazine could be worth trying. Finding happiness in hydrogénation Hydrazine is also effective for organic reductions. It lets you hydrogenate safely at atmospheric pressure, while eliminating a lot of expensive equipment. And it gives you hydrogénation flexibility. Depending on the technique used, hydrazine can be selective or stereospecific or both. Thanks to hydrazine's selectivity, for example, 0?N
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it is possible to convert an aromatic nitro compound to an amine in the presence of other reducible groups. Under suitable conditions, hydrogénations with hydrazine are stereospecific, giving the cis isomer • without a difficult, expensive sepa-
ration step. (This property can be especially valuable in lipid and sterol chemistry.) There can be other reductive applications. To prepare catalysts. To prevent scorching of urethane foams. To prevent discolorations of fluids. To stabilize polyolefins. And others. The most interesting applications, though, are the ones that haven't been tried yet. The ones that could supply the vital link in your research activities. The ones in your head. Let's go head to head Maybe we should put our heads together. To start, we'll send you a brochure that will give you a better idea of some of hydrazine's possibilities. If you'd like us to think along with you, we'll give you technical assistance. If you'd like to work while you think, we'll send you samples to think with. And you can be sure there'll be plenty of hydrazine for your needs. Thanks to a recent plant expansion, we've tripled our capacity. So, whatever you need, just ask on your company letterhead. Write: Hydrazine Market Manager, Olin Chemicals, Dept. 22, 120 Long Ridge Road, Stamford, CT 06904. Or call: (203) 356-2473.
Olin
CHEMICALS
