Vitamin Precursor Synthesis Investigated in Micro Reactors

3 Vitamin Precursor Synthesis Investigated in Micro Reactors Organic synthesis SS [OS S8] Synthesis of a vitamin precursor 

The reactants and the product were not disclosed in the open literature as the industrial process is proprietary [61, 62,127,142,143]. The reactant is dissolved in hexane and the reaction is catalyzed by concentrated sulfuric acid which is present in quantitative amounts. Thus, the reaction is carried out as a liquid/liquid process. A reaction scheme is given in [61, 62]. The reactant quickly forms an intermediate which again quickly reacts to give the product. Thermally induced side reactions occur. 

On an industrial level, the reaction is carried out in semi-batch mode with a yield of 70% [61, 62,127]. First steps towards continuous production with a mixer and a cooler increased the yield to 80-85% however, the reaction occurred partly in the mixer, thereby increasing the temperature in this unit The reaction is quenched by dilution with water, also having a cooling function. 

Conversion/selectivity/yield - benchmarking to industrial process and laboratory-scale processing 

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