Hydrogen Peroxide → cis-Epoxysuccinate

Participants

Reaction Steps

M. Church and R. Blumberg (Ind. Engng. Chem. 43 (1951), 1780) have described a method of producing tartaric acid from maleic acid and hydrogen peroxide. The maleic acid is epoxidised with hydrogen peroxide in the presence of tungstic acid and the cis-epoxysuccinic acid formed is hydrolysed into tartaric acid which is crystallised by cooling the reaction solution and filtered off, the mother liquor being recycled to the epoxidation stage. The reaction takes place in accordance with the following reaction scheme: ##STR1##

Provenance & Evidence