Benzyl tributyl ammonium chloride is a phase-transfer catalyst that often behaves similar to tetrabutyl ammonium bromide from the standpoints of reactivity and catalyst separation. Benzyl groups exhibit structure-activity characteristics like butyl groups.
Benzyl tributyl ammonium chloride can be less expensive than TBAB since they are both made from tributylamine, but benzyl chloride is less expensive than butyl bromide. However, benzylated quats are less stable than quats with straight chain alkyl groups. For example, if you are performing a nucleophilic substitution, you must be cautious of the possibility of benzylating your nucleophile.
Overall, benzyl tributyl ammonium chloride could be considered as an alternative to TBAB if cost is an issue and benzylated impurities can be avoided or tolerated.
Benzyl Tributyl Ammonium Chloride is available from Dishman
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!).
