Acetic Acid → 4-Nitrobenzoic Acid

Participants

Reaction Steps

In the presence of 40 g of Co(OAc)2 . 4H2O and 8 g of KBr, 600 grams of p-nitrotoluene was oxidized in 2500 ml of glacial acetic acid. The product was processed as in the above Example 15; after the addition of 600 more grams of p-nitrotoluene, the oxidation was performed again, and the procedure was repeated one more time. The reaction temperature in all three procedures was not increased above 130° C. Filtration of the 3 reaction solutions yielded 2096 grams of p-nitrobenzoic acid (95.5% of the theory). After the addition to the mother liquors of 400 ml of 1,2-dichloroethane for each batch, 247 grams of water (99.5% of the theory) were removed by azeotropic distillation.

Provenance & Evidence