HEG Cl is hexaethyl guanidinium chloride. This phase-transfer catalyst was made popular in the 1990’s when General Electric issued multiple patents for the use of HEG Cl for high-temperature PTC reactions, most notably nucleophilic aromatic substitutions.
GE documented comparative studies that showed that HEG Cl was more effective than even tetraphenyl phosphonium chloride, which has always been known to be a very effective phase-transfer catalyst for high-temperature reactions.
In fact, GE documented the use of HEG Cl for PTC applications at temperatures in the high 100’s and low 200’s (Celsius). GE and SABIC Innovative Plastics patented applications for the recovery of HEG Cl.
The point is that HEG Cl is known to be an excellent high-temperature phase-transfer catalyst. When we have high-temperature PTC applications to evaluate, we screen HEG Cl after assuring that the reaction is safe and implementing safe operating procedures and protective equipment.
HEG Cl is available from VanDMark Chemical Inc.
Need to learn more about which phase-transfer catalyst to choose for a specific PTC application? Contact Marc Halpern of PTC Organics by E-mail.
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!).
