The Industrial Phase-Transfer Catalysis Experts

PTC Tip of the Month E-Newsletter

PTC Course: Industrial Phase-Transfer Catalysis


How to Develop Low-Cost High-Performance Green Chemistry PTC Processes

Module 1 (Day 1): Choose PTC Process Conditions Like an Expert

Module 2 (Day 2): PTC Applications: Critical Review of 200 Reactions

Module 3 (Day 3): PTC Workshop

Why You Should Bring In-House the Course “Industrial Phase-Transfer Catalysis”

This PTC course has an unmatched return on investment of your company’s training investment because it is directly focused on helping your company achieve low-cost high-performance green chemistry processes, almost immediately, for all stages of process R&D from route selection to process development to plant support. Your company benefits from improved R&D efficiency, higher process performance and increased profit. This PTC course is unique in that it is relevant to about 25% of all organic reactions and is therefore immediately applicable to current projects in all areas of the organic chemical industry!Module 1 - sample

An earlier version of this highly rated industrial PTC course has been conducted 56 times since 1996 (formerly under the name “Practical Phase-Transfer Catalysis”), of which 31 were conducted in-house at process R&D departments for pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, flavors & fragrances, dyes & pigments and a variety of commodity, specialty and fine organic chemical manufacturers. Customers often report huge savings for existing processes, processes in development and greatly improved performance in route selection within weeks or months of conducting this course in-house or attending a public PTC course. Several companies have conducted this course in-house twice!

The new updated course “Industrial Phase-Transfer Catalysis” is now being offered in three modules for in-house sessions, each one day long with the option of conducting one, two or three modules. The public PTC course includes Modules 1 & 2.


Module 1 (Day 1): Choose PTC Process Conditions Like an Expert

Module 2 (Day 2): PTC Applications: Critical Review of 200 Reactions in 30 Reaction Categories

Module 3 (Day 3): PTC Workshop preferably under Secrecy Agreement

With such a high return on investment and immediate application to current projects, the only question that remains is how fast do you now want to benefit from this highly practical and immediately relevant training?


Module 1 (Day 1): Choose PTC Process Conditions Like an Expert

Learn how to systematically and rapidly choose process conditions and practical workup for PTC processes to achieve the lowest cost highest performance green chemistry. Learn the comprehensive fundamentals and practical guidelines for choosing phase-transfer catalyst (structure-activity relationships, catalyst separation, catalyst stability), solvent, hydration, anions, leaving groups, agitation, highly specialized techniques and specific guidelines for evaluating new PTC applications in 3-5 experiments. Dr. Halpern invented the “Halpern pKa Guidelines for Evaluation and Optimization of New PTC Applications” and he also invented the q-value structure-activity parameter that characterizes the accessibility of the positive charge of quaternary onium salts that affects ion pairing.

Click here for the agenda of Module 1 of “Industrial Phase-Transfer Catalysis”Halpern pKa Guidelines

Module 1 is not only the most important day of the PTC course, it is the investment that will save your company weeks and months of development time AND result in much higher process performance and profit (higher yield, shorter reaction time, reducing excess reactants, better selectivity, effective workup, replacing expensive hazardous strong base, replacing hard-to-recover solvents, eliminating unit operations, etc.).

Module 1 is a standalone course that will likely result in higher profit for your company. Of course, it is much more effective to conduct Module 2 (Day 2) immediately after Module 1. If your company must limit the training to one day, Module 1 is the most effective investment of valuable R&D resources and training time from which your department can benefit.

Now Contact Dr. Marc Halpern to coordinate available dates and logistics for conducting Module 1 of “Industrial Phase-Transfer Catalysis” at your company.

Module 2 (Day 2): PTC Applications: Critical Review of 200 Reactions in 30 Reaction Categories

While Module 1 teaches you how to choose PTC reaction conditions like an expert to achieve high performance, Module 2 is the perfect follow up that shows you the extremely broad scope of applications in which PTC excels that leverage the concepts learned in Module 1. In Module 2, the participants are guided through critique of 200 PTC patented and published applications in 30 reaction categories using the fundamentals and guidelines from Module 1 to understand or improve upon the impressive performance of these PTC reactions.Module 2 sample

The PTC reactions analyzed in Module 2 include C-Alkylation, Chiral Alkylation, O-Alkylation (Etherification), S-Alkylation, N-Alkylation, Ambident Alkylation, Michael Addition, Aldol Condensation, Wittig, Other Condensations, Dehydrohalogenation, Carbene Reactions, Hydrolysis, Esterification, Transesterification, Acylation, Phosphorylation, Tosylation, Carbamoylation, Other PTC Reactions with Water-Sensitive Compounds, Nucleophilic Substitutions with Cyanide , Azide, Fluoride, Other Nucleophilic Aliphatic & Aromatic Substitutions, Oxidation, Epoxidation, Reduction, Carbonylation, Transition Metal Co-Catalysis, Suzuki Coupling, Chlorination, PTC-Acid Reactions and PTC Radical Reactions.

Click here for the agenda of Module 2 of “Industrial Phase-Transfer Catalysis”

Now Contact Dr. Marc Halpern to coordinate available dates and logistics for conducting Module 1 and Module 2 of “Industrial Phase-Transfer Catalysis” at your company.

Module 3 (Day 3): PTC Workshop preferably under secrecy agreement

Module 3 is a highly effective option that many companies have leveraged to obtain the best available PTC expertise, under secrecy agreement, for their active projects in development or in commercial production. Module 3 combines group participation with Dr. Marc Halpern’s highly specialized expertise in industrial PTC in the most immediate manner to achieve commercial goals or current tight deadlines for route selection, processes in development or to extract more profit from on-stream processes. Module 3 typically covers guided learning and actual consulting for about 10 projects in one intense day and the outcome is composing well-defined experimental programs to screen PTC breakthroughs in the minimum number of experiments for each project.

Alternatively, Module 3 can be used to jointly (your team with Dr. Halpern’s oversight) design PTC processes based on customer choice of internal projects and other diverse and challenging PTC applications selected by Dr. Halpern.

Some companies have chosen to conduct Module 3 several weeks after Modules 1 and 2 in order to give their technical teams time to digest the course material then brainstorm the internal projects with the highest potential to benefit from PTC.

Now Contact Dr. Marc Halpern to coordinate available dates and logistics for conducting the complete course “Industrial Phase-Transfer Catalysis” at your company.