Question

What is meant by Hydrogenation reaction? Mention one of its industrial application.

Answer 1

Part 1:

• An unsaturated hydrocarbon is the one in which there is the presence of double or triple bond between two adjacent Carbon atoms.
• The addition of Hydrogen molecules to an unsaturated hydrocarbon is called Hydrogenation reaction. For example,

$$\begin{gathered} {\mathrm{C}}_2{\mathrm{H}}_4\left(\mathrm{g}\right)+{\mathrm{H}}_2\left(\mathrm{g}\right)\underset{}{\overset{\mathrm{Ni}/\mathrm{Pt},{250}^{\mathrm{o}}\mathrm{C}}{\to }}{\mathrm{C}}_2{\mathrm{H}}_6\left(\mathrm{g}\right) \\ \mathrm{Ethene}\mathrm{Ethane} \end{gathered}$$

Part 2: Industrial use

• The hydrogenation process is used to prepare vegetable ghee from vegetable oil.
• Vegetable oils like Cottonseed oil, groundnut oil, etc. have double or triple bonds in their molecule.
• They are converted to ghee by Hydrogenation in the presence of Nickel.
• This process of conversion of vegetable oil to a solid fat is called Hydrogenation of oils.

$\mathrm{Vegetable}\mathrm{oil}+{\mathrm{H}}_2\left(\mathrm{g}\right)\underset{}{\overset{\mathrm{Ni}/\mathrm{Pt}}{\to }}\mathrm{Vegetable}\mathrm{ghee}$