Aldol condensation of refluxing acetone on CaC2 achieves efficient coproduction of diacetone alcohol, mesityl oxide and isophorone

Xuebing Xu; Hong Meng; Yingzhou Lu; Chunxi Li

doi:10.1039/c8ra05965a

Aldol condensation of refluxing acetone on CaC₂ achieves efficient coproduction of diacetone alcohol, mesityl oxide and isophorone

RSC Adv. 2018 Aug 30;8(53):30610-30615. doi: 10.1039/c8ra05965a. eCollection 2018 Aug 24.

Authors

Xuebing Xu^{1

2}, Hong Meng², Yingzhou Lu², Chunxi Li^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technolog Beijing 100029 PR China.
² College of Chemical Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology Beijing 100029 PR China.
³ Beijing Key Laboratory of Energy Environmental Catalysis, Beijing University of Chemical Technology Beijing 100029 PR China Licx@mail.buct.edu.cn.

Abstract

Efficient production of diacetone alcohol (DAA), mesityl oxide (MO) and isophorone (IP) is important for the high value utilization of acetone. For this, a novel process is proposed for the aldol condensation of acetone by refluxing on CaC₂, whereby 95% of total selectivity of (DAA, MO and IP) and 85% of acetone conversion are achieved simultaneously under mild conditions (56 °C, 100 kPa). This result is superior to the previously reported ones, which may be ascribed to the extremely high catalytic capacity of CaC₂ for the aldol condensation and instant separation of the target products from the catalyst to suppress the unwanted successive condensations. Moreover, the target products may be adjusted by operation conditions. Lower temperature and higher reflux rate favour the production of DAA and MO; MO and IP are favoured otherwise. The present process integrates several functions into one unit, i.e. the basic catalysis of calcium carbide, aldol condensation of acetone, instant distillation separation of the condensates, and the hydrolysis of CaC₂ to C₂H₂, which makes it feasible to coproduce C₂H₂ and high value derivatives of acetone simultaneously.