Synthesis and Production
Phthalic anhydride was first reported in 1836 by Auguste Laurent. It is presently obtained by catalytic oxidation of ortho-xylene and naphthalene ("Gibbs phthalic anhydride process"):
- C6H4(CH3)2 + 3 O2 → C6H4(CO)2O + 3 H2O
- C10H8 + 4.5 O2 → C6H4(CO)2O + 2 H2O + 2 CO2
The catalyst that is used for the oxidation of xylene is a modified vanadium pentoxide (V2O5). When separating the phthalic anhydride from byproducts such as o-xylene in water, or maleic anhydride, a series of “switch condensers” is required. Phthalic anhydride can also be prepared from phthalic acid:
Read more about this topic: Phthalic Anhydride
Famous quotes containing the words synthesis and/or production:
“It is in this impossibility of attaining to a synthesis of the inner life and the outward that the inferiority of the biographer to the novelist lies. The biographer quite clearly sees Peel, say, seated on his bench while his opponents overwhelm him with perhaps undeserved censure. He sees him motionless, miserable, his head bent on his breast. He asks himself: “What is he thinking?” and he knows nothing.”
—Andre Maurois (1885–1967)
“The repossession by women of our bodies will bring far more essential change to human society than the seizing of the means of production by workers.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)