Oxidation

Oxidation

Oxidation can be accomplished in many ways.

At Chemoxy we use several process types:

Hydrogen peroxide:

Here, using catalysts, hydrogen peroxide is used to form the epoxide, which can then be used to make diols, react with nucleophiles etc

The fractionation capabilities mean that we can separate and recover, unreacted olefins if necessary, and we can distil and dry the resulting epoxide and remove it from any catalyst used.

Air Oxidation:

Air oxidation has many uses, for instance in oxidation of aldehydes to acids, and more recently as a replacement for some technologies, such as chromium mediated oxidations – with Cr⁶⁺ being determined as toxic to humans, many F&F products that utilised this technology, have had to replace Chromium based catalysts. One such example is the conversion of pinene to verbenone:

Baeyer Villiger:

This is the well-known oxidation of ketones to esters or lactones with per-acids

Oxidation of ketone to ester – eg cyclopentanone to delta-valerolactone:

Oxidation of cyclohexylmethyl ketone to cyclohexyl acetate:

Chemoxy’s skill set, allows the products to be produced in high purity with low water content, often required as part of the specification, which is especially important in many applications. Also, given oxidations are often not as selective as required, separation from by-products is a key part of the Chemoxy value proposition.