Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	GR/S79343/01
Title:	A New Route to Polyhydric Alcohols
Principal Investigator:	Jackson, Professor SD
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	School of Chemistry
Organisation:	University of Glasgow
Scheme:	Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	01 November 2004	Ends:	31 March 2008	Value (£):	273,344
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Catalysis & Applied Catalysis
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Chemicals
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Summary on Grant Application Form
In this proposal we set forth a speculative new route to pentaerythritol, that involves a move from the old, traditional, wet Cannizzaro chemistry using aqueous bases and generating large amounts of waste, to a new greener chemistry, involving heterogeneous catalysis and, in which we go one step further back in the supply chain than the present process. Our feedstocks are methanol and acetaldehyde. It is our intention to produce dry formaldehyde in-situ, by dehydrogenation of methanol, react it with acetaldehyde and then use the hydrogen by-product from the dehydrogenation step, along with make-up hydrogen, to hydrogenate the methylolated aldehyde to the polyhydric alcohol The current process uses formalin (formaldehyde in an aqueous solution containing a range of compounds), produced by an oxidative dehydrogenation from methanol, the hydrogen being converted to water and therefore unusable. In our proposed process, the use of dry formaldehyde is a key aspect of this new chemistry as the co-produced hydrogen can be used in the process to hydrogenate the aldehyde to the alcohol, and as the formaldehyde is dry it can be fed directly to the heterogeneous base catalyst. Heterogeneous basecatalysts are sensitive to water as a poison and so the use of formalin would not be as effective as dry formaldehyde. Once the acetaldehyde and formaldehyde have reacted over the base catalyst, the outlet is taken to the third catalyst for hydrogenation. This hydrogenation is non-trivial and will be a major new piece of catalytic chemistry. Therefore the new chemistry for pentaerythritol production will require the development of three new heterogeneous catalysts.
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