Process Development for Selective Oxidation of Alcohol to Aldehydes

Abstract

Oxidation of alcohol to the corresponding aldehyde or ketone is commercially an attractive reaction. Alcohols, aldehydes and ketones are largely used in fragrance and perfumery industry. In this work process development study for alcohol oxidation to aldehydes were studied. Processes based on heterogeneous catalyst, catalyst leaching, stability of the catalyst under reaction conditions and selectivity to the desired product is major problems. Reactions were carried out in different reactor configurations like low pressure glass reactor, high pressure autoclave reactor and vapor phase reactor. Different types of oxidant like air, TBHP or hydrogen peroxide etc were also studied. Due to ease of operation and control, regeneration of catalyst and ease of separation of catalyst from the reaction mass, adoptability to various modes of operation of reactors and reactor configuration and very high selectivity of the desired products with a suitable catalyst, favors vapor phase reactor configuration. Similarly air is the most suitable oxidizing agent for selective oxidation reactions as mentioned above. Various linear and aromatic alcohols were tested under vapor phase air oxidation reactions. Even at high temperature and higher concentrations of reactants, in presence of 10%Ag-OMS-2 catalyst, selectivity to desired product was found very high in most of the alcohol to aldehyde oxidation reactions. Detail kinetic study was carried out for 1-octanol oxidation.