In the autoxidation of acetaldehyde we are concerned with the reaction According to Bodenstein (2), the following chain mechanism takes of the formation of peracetic acid.Molecular oxygen adds to the active form of aldehyde (l), producing the active form of peracetic acid (2), in agreement with the theory of Bach (1) and Engler (4). The latter reacts with a normal molecule of acetaldehyde forming again an active aldehyde molecule and the final product (3). The peracetic acid obtained can in turn oxidize aldehyde further, forming acetic acid. The process of oxidizing acetaldehyde by oxygen directly to acetic acid in the presence of a catalyst is widely used in industry. For the investigation of the mechanism of this process, the study of the kinetics of not only the first stage of the formation of peracetic acid is important, but also the second stage, the interaction of peracetic acid with acetaldehyde.We have made a special study of th-second stage of this process (see the following article), and have found that the interaction between peracid and aldehyde proceeds also in two stages (a) and (b): (a) The addition of a molecule of aldehyde to the peracetic acid and the formation of an inter-837
The study of the intermediate stages of aldehyde oxidation was limited chiefly to investigations of the first stage of oxidation, i.e., the formation of peracid from the aldehyde molecule and the oxygen molecule. The kinetics of the second stage of the process, the interaction between the peracid and aldehyde, RCOOOH + RCHO -» 2RCOOH remained unstudied.In one of his recent papers Wieland (5) studied the process of interaction between the peracids and aldehyde. He came to the conclusion that in case of a reaction between peracetic acid and aldehyde, the reaction may
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.