Rohm and Haas Company

Clark R Carpenter

Richard Foster Merritt

James S Clovis

A process for the preparation of a .alpha.,.beta.-unsaturated carboxylic acid by reacting formaldehyde, another aldehyde and a mineral acid salt of a secondary amine to form an intermediate Mannich base salt; oxidizing the Mannich base salt to the corresponding aminoacid salt; thermally cracking the aminoacid salt to yield an aqueous reaction products mixture of an .alpha.,.beta.-unsaturated carboxylic acid and the mineral acid salt of the secondary amine; and separating and isolating the aqueous reaction products.

Preparation of .alpha.,.beta.-unsaturated carboxylic acids via Mannich

An improved continous single step vapor phase process for the preparation of substituted vinylbenzyl chloride from substituted ethyltoluene is disclosed. In this process a substituted ethyltoluene is reacted with a halogen gas in the vapor phase, at elevated temperatures via a continuous feed process. Furthermore, this process achieves halogenation followed by dehydrohalogenation in a single pass through the reactor. There is also obtained a very high total selectivity to vinylbenzyl chloride and its precursors via this continuous process.

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Berlin, NJ, United States of America

Clark R Carpenter