A patent was issued this week that described the application of PTC to conduct several consecutive reactions including reaction of amine with formaldehyde, etherification with epichlorohydrin and ring opening polymerization.
The reaction between melamine and formaldehyde in the presence of base proceeds without a phase-transfer catalyst, however, more complete conversion was achieved in the presence of benzyltrimethylammonium bromide, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide, tetrabutylammonium hydroxide, than in their absence.
In addition, PTC was also used to produce melamine epoxy resin by ring opening melamine glycidyl ether.
Tetramethylammonium is more stable in the presence of 50% NaOH and heat than tetrabutylammonium since the latter can undergo Hofmann Elimination whereas tetramethylammonium has no beta protons for that mode of decomposition.
Now contact Marc Halpern to increase your company’s profit, process performance and R&D efficiency by integrating PTC Organics’ highly specialized expertise in industrial phase-transfer catalysis with your commercial goals.
About Marc Halpern
Dr. Halpern is founder and president of PTC Organics, Inc., the only company dedicated exclusively to developing low-cost high-performance green chemistry processes for the manufacture of organic chemicals using Phase Transfer Catalysis. Dr. Halpern has innovated PTC breakthroughs for pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, petrochemicals, monomers, polymers, flavors & fragrances, dyes & pigments and solvents. Dr. Halpern has provided PTC services on-site at more than 260 industrial process R&D departments in 37 countries and has helped chemical companies save > $200 million. Dr. Halpern co-authored five books including the best-selling “Phase-Transfer Catalysis: Fundamentals, Applications and Industrial Perspectives” and has presented the 2-day course “Practical Phase-Transfer Catalysis” at 50 locations in the US, Europe and Asia.
Dr. Halpern founded the journal “Industrial Phase-Transfer Catalysis” and “The PTC Tip of the Month” enjoyed by 2,100 qualified subscribers, now beyond 130 issues. In 2014, Dr. Halpern is celebrating his 30th year in the chemical industry, including serving as a process chemist at Dow Chemical, a supervisor of process chemistry at ICI, Director of R&D at Sybron Chemicals and founder and president of PTC Organics Inc. (15 years) and PTC Communications Inc. (20 years). Dr. Halpern also co-founded PTC Interface Inc. in 1989 and PTC Value Recovery Inc. in 1999. His academic breakthroughs include the PTC pKa Guidelines, the q-value for quat accessibility and he has achieved industrial PTC breakthroughs for a dozen strong base reactions as well as esterifications, transesterifications, epoxidations and chloromethylations plus contributed to more than 100 other industrial PTC process development projects.
Dr. Halpern has dedicated his adult life to his family and to phase-transfer catalysis (in that order!).
