Process for producing alkali metal alcoholates
AssigneeMetallgesellschaft Aktiengesellschaft
InventorsUlrich Sander, Pavel Soukup, Harald Helmrich, Wilfried Weiss
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Abstract
A process is described for the production of alcoholates from alkali metal hydroxides and aliphatic alcohol which in their molecule contain 1 to 6 carbon atoms. The alcoholates are produced in that alkali metal hydroxide is mixed with an alcohol and is reacted with said alcohol at a temperature from 80.degree. to 110.degree. C., preferably from 80.degree. to 100.degree. C., and under a pressure from 0.3 to 1.2 bars, the alcohol water mixture which evaporates during the reaction is separated into its components by at least one membrane, the alcohol vapor and the water vapor are condensed and the condensed alcohol is recycled to the reaction.
Claims9
A process for producing an alkali metal alcoholate, comprising the steps of:
- (a) mixing an alkali metal hydroxide with an alcohol capable of reacting therewith to form an alcoholate and reacting the resulting mixture at a temperature of 50.degree. to 110.degree. C. under a pressure of 0.3 to 1.2 bar to produce an alkali metal alcoholate and a vapor-phase alcohol-water mixture and separating the alkali metal alcoholate from the vapor phase alcohol-water mixture;
- (a.sub.1) heating said vapor-phase alcohol-water mixture to a temperature above the reaction temperature in step (a) but less than 120.degree. C. prior to separation of the vapor-phase alcohol-water mixture;
- (b) separating the components of said vapor-phase alcohol-water mixture by pervaporation through at least one membrane with one of said components permeating said membrane while the other component is retained thereby to recover alcohol vapor and water vapor from said vapor-phase alcohol-water mixture;
- (c) separately condensing the recovered alcohol and water vapors of step (b);
- (d) recycling condensed alcohol from step (c) to step (a) for reaction with alkali metal hydroxide;
- and
- (e) recovering the alkali metal alcoholate produced in step (a).
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.