1970 Volume 27 Issue 304 Pages 537-543
Alkali hydrolysis of acrolein copolymers in dioxane-methanol-water was studied. Hydrolysis of acrolein-ethyl acrylate and 2-ethyl-hexyl acrylate copolymers can be divided in two stages.
In the first stage, alkali was rapidly consumed and the hydrolysis of the esters neighbouring with one acrolein unit sequence was accelerated. The second stage of the hydrolysis was slow.
It was found from the reaction of acrolein-styrene copolymers with alkali that all of the aldehyde groups in copolymers containing less than 50mol % acrolein undergo the Cannizzaro reaction.
