The Industrial Phase-Transfer Catalysis Experts

PTC Tip of the Month E-Newsletter

PTC Reaction of the Month - March 2013

PTC O-Benzoylation

By Marc Halpern, the leading expert in industrial phase-transfer catalysis.

In this March 2013 patent, PTC is used for the benzoylation of the three open hydroxyls of furanose. A tiny excess of benzoyl chloride was used which is quite impressive considering that it is being mixed with 25% aqueous NaOH which of course should hydrolyze the benzoyl chloride. The benzoyl chloride was added slowly to minimize hydrolysis. Although not mentioned in the patent, we speculate that the inventors avoided over-agitation to minimize non-catalyzed interfacial hydrolysis of the benzoyl chloride. It is also implied that the toluene solvent protected the benzoyl chloride from hydrolysis as well.

If you or your company can benefit from achieving higher process performance in a shorter development time for this PTC reaction or any other reaction, by having access to the best PTC expertise available, NOW CONTACT Marc Halpern to inquire about using phase-transfer catalysis to achieve low-cost high-performance green chemistry. Remember, PTC excels in thousands of reactions in more than 30 reaction categories including strong base reactions, nucleophilic substitutions, oxidations and reductions

If you’re not sure if PTC can help your reaction, now fill out the PTC Project Evaluation Form and E-mail a scanned copy to Marc Halpern or send it by fax to Dr. Halpern at +1 856-222-1124. If your company does not have a secrecy agreement with PTC Organics Inc. already in place, please use “R-groups” instead of the exact chemical structures.


About Marc Halpern

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!).

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