Method for producing 2-octyl (meth)acrylate

Abstract

The invention relates to a process for producing 2-octyl (meth)acrylate by reacting 2-octanol with (meth)acrylic acid in the presence of an acidic esterification catalyst, a polymerization inhibitor and the azeotroping agent cyclohexane, comprising the steps of: providing a reactor unit (24), wherein a reactor (1) having a reactor heating element (30) is located within the reactor unit (24), feeding 2-octanol (13), (meth)acrylic acid (14), acidic esterification catalyst (15), cyclohexane (17) and polymerization inhibitor (31) into the reactor (1), carrying out an esterification in the reactor (1) to form a liquid reaction mixture, wherein the esterification in the reactor (1) is conducted at a bottom temperature in the range of 90 to 130° C. and at an absolute pressure in the range of 0.5 to 2.0 bar, and a resulting reaction discharge from the reactor (1) is obtained, wherein the resulting reaction discharge comprises at least 2-octyl (meth)acrylate, 2-octanol, (meth)acrylic acid, acidic esterification catalyst, cyclohexane, water of esterification and polymerization inhibitor, and the water of esterification formed in the esterification together with the cyclohexane azeotroping agent forms a heterogeneous azeotrope, evaporating the heterogeneous azeotrope from the liquid reaction mixture of the reactor (1), wherein the evaporation is accomplished by the reactor heating element (30), and removing the gaseous heterogeneous azeotrope from the reactor (1), wherein the gaseous heterogeneous azeotrope is condensed in a condenser (5) and is then fed to a phase separator (6) and the water of esterification is separated off as the lower phase and the cyclohexane as upper phase in this phase separator (6).

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.