Tetrabutyl ammonium perchlorate is used as an electrolyte but may potentially be used for oxidations described in GFS’s monograph on perchlorate chemistry. As always, before performing any PTC reaction, especially one containing perchlorate, a full hazardous operations analysis must be performed to assure safety and taking all appropriate precautions.
Tetrabutyl ammonium perchlorate is supplied by GFS Chemicals.
It is interesting to note that perchlorate is one of the anions with the highest affinity for quaternary ammonium cations. As a result, if you have an aqueous phase that contains small amounts of perchlorate in the presence of other anions, such as chloride and sulfate, the quaternary ammonium cation may be effective in selectively extracting the perchlorate from that aqueous phase. A potential application may be to clean up soil or groundwater in areas that have perchlorate contamination such as Superfund locations in the Pacific Southwest of the United States.
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!).
