Effects of Reaction Conditions on the Production of Peracetic Acid by Liquid Phase Oxidation of Acetaldehyde

Abstract

In order to obtain fundamental data for commercial production of peracetic acid(PAA) by the oxidation of acetaldehyde(AcH) in the liquid phase, effects of various reaction conditions were studied, The oxidation reactions were perfromed at20C under atmospheric pressure in organic solvents.
Maximum yields of PAA and total peroxides(TPO) were obtained at around 75g/l of initial concentration of AcH regardless to the kind of solvents or presence of catalysts(Fig.3, 4), From the curves of initial rate of oxygen absorption at each concentration, reaction rate orders with respect to AcHc concentration with catalyst were 1.45, 1.0, 1.14 and 1.42 in the solvents of acetone, ethyl acetate, benzene and acetic acid, respectively(Fig.3, 5).Acetone and ethyl acetate were the best solvents for peracid production independent of using catalyst or not (Table1, 2).In many solvents such as toluen, the oxidation reaction did not proceed without catalysts, but addition of a little amount of Co catalyst promoted the reaction without an induction period(Table2). Generally, good yields of PAA and TPO were obtained when such solvents as accelerate the oxidation reaction were used.
Effects of the amount of catalysts were studied using Mn, Co and Fe-acetylacetonato as catalysts. A trace amount of the Mn catalyst decomposed the products and inhibited the oxidation, but maximum yields were obtained when O.1g/l of the Co catalyst or O.005-0.015g/l of the Fe catalyst were added(Table3). Some kinds of Co and Fe salts also gave PAA and TPO in high yields(Table4).