Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Acetone Uses

techkasamba - 11-12-2008 at 02:56

Sir
Can someone suggest to produce a secondary alcohol or any other valuable chemical from Acetone at large scale.

I am having Acetone as a by product.

stoichiometric_steve - 11-12-2008 at 04:18

sell it

Picric-A - 11-12-2008 at 05:43

Reduce it with sodium amalgam to prooduce Propan-2-ol (the secondry alcohol you want)
there are loads of things you can use propanone for, just use the search engine!

kclo4 - 11-12-2008 at 15:08

How are you having Acetone as a significant byproduct? that seems very bizarre to me!

I agree with Stoichiometric_Steve, just sell it. That, or you could keep it until you find another use for it.

Klute - 12-12-2008 at 09:10

Maybe he's making phenol from cumene, or any other oxo process..

franklyn - 12-12-2008 at 22:45

From Formaldehyde available at this link form the Sciencemadness library
http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/books/formaldehyde.pdf
On page 68
" A number of the lower polyoxymethylene glycols have been isolated by
* Staudinger in a fair degree of chemical purity. In the case of the lowest
homologs, this was accomplished by adding ACETONE to concentrated
water solutions of formaldehyde, drying the resultant mixture with anhydrous
sodium sulfate, and isolating the polyoxymethylene glycols in the acetone
solution thus obtained by fractional precipitation with petroleum ether.

* Die Hochmolekularen Organischen Verbindungen H. Staudinger p.249 - 250
Berlin, Julius Springer, 1932
_____________

On page 111
Double bonded methylenic derivatives are | | obtained by vapor phase
reactions of formaldehyde with carbonyl compounds such as | | ACETONE
CH3COCH3 (gas) + CH2O (gas) -> CH2:CHCOCH3 (gas) + H2O (gas)

US patent 2245567 - Brant , J.H., Hosche, R.L.

_____________

On page 112
Polymerization of Double-Bonded Methylene Compounds. Some ACETONE
formaldehyde resins are formed in this way;
CH3COCH3 + CH2O (aq) -> CH3COCH2.CH2OH -> CH3COCH:CH2 + H2O

Morgan G., Megson, N.J.L., Pepper, K.W., ( 1938 )Chem & Indus., 57, 885 - 891

Other resinous derivatives are discussed on pages 155, 156, 157,
along with their corresponding references. Type acetone into the search function
for all mentions.

.

techkasamba - 15-12-2008 at 00:34

Thanks for all valuable suggestions.
Actually this acetone is removed from commercial ethanol which is denatured by acetone.

The purity of this acetone is ~80%, but that is not a problem. Once we identify a solution we will make it pure before use..

I think I can use some reactions as defined in the suggested book.

jhullaert - 23-12-2008 at 13:26

For what purpose do you use the ethanol?
Is it for consumption?
Or is it necessary to remove the aceton to use the ethanol in reactions?

Klute - 25-12-2008 at 04:02

Well, in reactions involvingamine, or ketones and aldehydes in a cidic or basic media, acetone can interfer and cause side products, which can be a problem.

techkasamba - 29-12-2008 at 20:59

Actually Ethanol is used for commercial purpose for making ethylene. SO we have to remove Acetone first which is getting accumulated.

I thought if I can make some chloro Or Fluoro Acetone out of it but dont know how to do it.

octave - 30-12-2008 at 13:40

Chloroacetone is a powerful lachrymator and I'm pretty sure Fluoroacetone is similar but more poisonous.

sri4smile85 - 9-2-2009 at 22:53

what's the use of using thionyl chloride with toluene

Globey - 19-2-2009 at 09:06

There are so many things which can be made from primarily acetone, it is almost mind-boggling. But it is a commodity, used in multi-ton quantities annually world wide. You could sell it, but I don't know how much you will get. Many bulk organics prices are falling lately, as quantity demanded falls. BASF just shuttered a plant in Korea, I think, but they weren't producing acetone. The suggestion for turning it into isopropyl alcohol is a god one, and possibly the best *primary*, value-added reaction for acetone.

chief - 19-2-2009 at 12:24

Could this reduction to propan-2-ol also be achieved in a NaOH-electrolytic cell (reacting with the fresh Na), where acetone would be mixed with the water ? (Maybe a stupid Idea, since I have _no_ big picture about organics at all ...);
Or would this just give some nasty peroxide ?

How about using only sodium, not amalgam ? Calcium or potassium ? Barium ?

[Edited on 19-2-2009 by chief]

DJF90 - 19-2-2009 at 13:42

Sodium hydroxide would likely cause an aldol reaction.

WaveFront - 26-2-2009 at 23:56

Adding a little to your car once in a while, you can get some extra power and clean the injectors. If used too much or many times, you will destroy plastic parts

HydroCarbon - 27-2-2009 at 21:34

How much do you add to the gas tank in relation to total volume of fuel?

And just out of curiosity. Concerning the idea of selling it, who would you sell it to?

[Edited on 28-2-2009 by HydroCarbon]

Picric-A - 28-2-2009 at 00:12

You must be making a hell of a lot of acetone if you are thinking of selling it :O
i would say around 5% would be a decent amount. Listen to wavefront though, it will literally dissolve plastic/rubber fuel pipes so be carfull!

DJF90 - 28-2-2009 at 04:00

I seriously wouldnt add any acetone to my fuel tank. Not only might it damage the fuel lines but you also have to think of its effect on the engine, as it could cause knocking. I think its alot safer just sticking to the correct fuel.

panziandi - 28-2-2009 at 08:00

Blending fuels is a science of its own! You NEED to have an idea of what the F*** you are doing.

Anything blended into a fuel has to have minimal hygroscopicity. I would highly recommend that you have a petrol motor for testing fuel blends before you put them into your car since using non-standard fuels voids your warrenty and also can cost a lot to have the work done to put it right.

However it is perfectly legal to run you car on any fuel you desire. If you want to do it I'd try blending 0.0025% final concentration of acetone.

Take your fuel tank volume, blend a working stock of acetone-fuel say 2.5L stock soluton at 2.5% actone then add an aliquot to the tank, then dilute with high octane fuel, concentrations will not be exact unless you drain your fuel tank out. You can always adjust the % until you find an opitmum. But certainly DO NOT run a 5% acetone concentration your engine will die! It will increase the temperature of the engine, since it is an "oxygenated fuel" and hotter buring you get less HC emissions, may however find you have higher NOx levels, not sure.

A mate of mine was trying this blend I believe... It should be fine!

WaveFront - 28-2-2009 at 08:47

I tried one glass per tank a couple times. It was good for my diesel car.

Picric-A - 28-2-2009 at 09:06

Quote:
Originally posted by panziandi
If you want to do it I'd try blending 0.0025% final concentration of acetone.



0.0025% seems a waste of time adding to your car... how did you work out that percentage?

panziandi - 28-2-2009 at 09:57

It's the percentage recommended on some performance car websites! I had a feeling something like 0.5% but I like to check my facts first, several sites state a final conc of 0.0025%. I could always ask around some people who blend their own high performance fuels and ask what they use.

It's ok in diesel cars since it lowers the surface tension of diesel and hence you can form a better mist which increases the peformance.

EDIT: I quote from a performance website (a different one) "Its absolutely unharmful to use acetone with tiny amount of 2.5 ml per liter of petrol & 1.5 ml per liter of diesel........increased mileage with increased performance & reduced carbon emission.....try it...." so that is what 0.25% for petrol and 0.15% for diesel. I suppose you have to blend and find the correct % for your car but I would never use 5%

[Edited on 28-2-2009 by panziandi]

crazyboy - 28-2-2009 at 09:58

Acetone won't improve gas mileage. The EPA investigates thousands of claims for increased engine performance every year. Gasoline has plenty of additives to increase gas mileage, if acetone worked it would be in our tanks already.

Picric-A - 28-2-2009 at 10:00

Oh ok Panziandi, i thought this thread was directed at diesel engines,
you are probably right about the 0.0025% in petrol engines however.

@ crazyboy- it may not increase mileage however it does bulk up the diesel more, and if you are generating lots of acetone (for some reason) you may think about doing this.


[Edited on 28-2-2009 by Picric-A]

panziandi - 28-2-2009 at 10:13

There are claims it increases mileage. There are conflicting claims. It certainly reduces hydrocarbon emissions in the exhausts. It certainly should however produce more output from the engine, so I don't see why miles wouldn't increase, but mileage is average anyway at the best of times, depends on the tuning of the car, tyres, weight of the car, road surface, gears, etc so mileage as a measurment requires many repeats and standard procedures which are best to repeat in a lab with a engine set up than on the road!

Picric-A - 28-2-2009 at 10:20

Im sure plenty of people have jobs in working out what fuels make cars more efficient,
If acetone was known to increase it significantly it would already be used- acetone is extremly cheap!

panziandi - 28-2-2009 at 10:27

Most cars are not tuned to run on high octane fuels, in fact most cars are tuned to run on 95octane. The fuel industry will not change the fuel blend to a higher octane if most cars run on a lower octane. Also the industry has other additives it can blend in, also there is little point in blending in acetone when the fuel manufacturers can achieve a suitable blend using cracked branched hydrocarbons. Think of scales of economy. however it is easy enough to add the desired % to you own engine. In fact you can buy, allbeit pricey, additives OTC to blend into your fuel to clean the engine etc or to raise the power etc, these are a blend of oxygenated fuels and branched alkanes.