Patent ID: 8969598
Filing Date: 2015-03-03
Classification: C07D

Abstract:
1. A process for making a cyclic compound composition comprising: a. feeding a carbonyl composition comprising an aldehyde compound, a ketone compound, or a combination thereof, and a polyhydroxyl composition comprising a polyhydroxyl compound, to a reaction vessel at a molar ratio of all polyhydroxyl compounds to all carbonyl compounds fed to the reaction vessel of at least 3:1; and b. in a reaction vessel, reacting the carbonyl composition with the polyhydroxyl compound in the presence of a homogeneous acid catalyst to generate a liquid phase homogeneous reaction mixture in the reaction vessel comprising cyclic compounds, water, acid catalyst, and unreacted polyhydroxyl compound, and wherein at least 80% of the aldehyde, ketone, or combination of aldehyde and ketone compounds fed to the reaction vessel are converted in the reaction vessel, and wherein the reaction conditions within the reaction vessel do not boil the reaction mixture within the reaction vessel; and c. without separating water from the reaction mixture as it is being formed in the reaction mixture, continuously withdrawing the liquid phase homogeneous reaction mixture from the reaction vessel as a liquid product stream; and d. feeding the liquid reaction product stream directly or indirectly to a distillation column to separate cyclic compounds from unreacted polyhydroxyl compounds and withdrawing from the distillation column an overhead product stream and a bottoms stream, wherein the overhead product stream comprises cyclic compounds, unreacted carbonyl compounds and water and is rich in the concentration of cyclic compounds by moles relative to the bottoms stream, and the bottoms stream comprises unreacted polyhydroxyl compounds and acid catalyst and is rich in the concentration of unreacted polyhydroxyl compounds by moles relative to the overhead product stream; wherein the selectivity to cyclic compounds in the overhead product stream is at least 80%.