DEVELOPMENT OF METHYLAL SYNTHESIS BY REACTIVE DISTILLATION

The world's first technology for the commercial production of methylal is the reactive distillation method. Its application to a new formald ehyde process has also been investigated. Whereas the oxidation of met hanol yields one mole of water per mole of formaldehyde, methylal oxid ation produces only one mole of water for every three moles of formald ehyde. Thus, the output by methylal oxidation is more than 70 % formal dehyde compared with 55 % by methanol oxidation.For this purpose. basi c research on methylal synthesis was conducted and the world's first c ommercial production of methylal using reactive distillation was accom plished. Using this methylal, the world's first methylal oxidation tec hnology for manufacturing highly concentrated aqueous formaldehyde was established. This highly concentrated aqueous formaldehyde is then fe d to an acetal homopolymer and copolymer plant having a combined capac ity of 35,000 tons/year.