Millennium Specialty Chemicals, Inc.

Equistar Chemicals, LP

Lyondellbasell Flavors and Fragrances, LLC

Mikhail Y Lebedev

Mark B Erman

Joe W Snow

A process for separating at least one tertiary alcohol from at least one secondary alcohol from pine oil, the process comprising:

Process for separating tertiary alcohols from secondary alcohols from pine oil

A practical, economical process for making tricyclodecenyl esters is disclosed. After reacting a lower carboxylic acid and a dicyclopentadiene in the presence of triflic acid to form the ester, the reaction mixture is distilled in the presence of a base to isolate a fragrance-quality tricyclodecenyl ester. Adding enough base to neutralize the triflic acid enables a distillation-only purification, facilitates starting material recovery, and avoids drawbacks of a basic workup.

Process for making tricyclodecenyl esters

A process for making monomenthyl esters of dicarboxylic acids is disclosed. Menthol reacts with a saturated, cyclic anhydride in the presence of a base catalyst under conditions effective to produce a mixture of mono- and bis-menthyl esters in which the molar ratio of mono- to bis-menthyl esters is enhanced compared with the ratio of esters produced in a similar uncatalyzed process.

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Jacksonville, FL, United States of America

Mikhail Y Lebedev