PRODUCTION OF ARYL AND ARALKYLCARBOXYLIC ACIDS

Т.Е. Zhesko, V.P. Boyarsky, А.G. Nikitina
VNIINeftechim, St-Petersburg, tel\fax +7(812)346-78-21
[email protected]

Aryl- and aralkylcarboxylic acids are valuable products of fine chemistry, which are widely used in manufacture of synthetic fibers, polymers, pharmaceutical preparations, fragrances, liquid crystals, etc.

An original flexible method of wide variety of these acids is offered by us.

The method is based on the carbonylation reaction of corresponding halides (chlorides or bromides) under extremely mild conditions (pressure up to 5 bars, temperature up to 70 °C) in the presence of modified cobalt carbonyl catalysts.

The process is distinguished by:

• the use of accessible and relatively inexpensive raw materials and catalysts;
• substitution of ecologically dange­rous technologies using for example alkali metal cyanides;
• simplicity of apparatus equipment and low power consumption;
• flexibility, i. e. the possibility of obtaining a wide number of useful products using the same main unit of the plant and changing only substrate (halogenide) or co-catalysts.

Received products:

1. Arylcarboxylic acids:
• a) l, 4, 5, 8-naphtalenetetracarboxylic acid
• b) 4, 4'-diphenyldicarboxylic acid
• c) 4, 4'diphenyloxydedicarboxylic acid
• e) p- (n-butyl) -benzoic acid and other alkyl- and alkoxybenzoic acids
2. Aralkylcarboxylic acids:
• f) phenylacetic acid
• g) phenylpyruvic acid
• h) p-phenylenediacetic acid
• i) 1-naphtylacetic acid
3. Intended usage:
• a) is applied in manufacturing vat dyes and highly thermoresistant polymers
• b, c, d) are monomers for liquid crystalline thermoplastics
• e) are liquid crystals themself
• f) is used in manufacturing anti­biotics and other drugs, perfumes and optical bleache
• g) is intermediate product in phenylalanine-aspartam obtaining
• h) used in polymers production
• i) is plants growth stimulator

The process was tested at the pilot installation with some mentioned products, "know-how" is available for this process, its catalytic systems and technological instrumentation.