Synthesis of a-Hydroxy Dodecanoic Acid by Hydrolysis of a-Chlorine Dodecanoic Acid

Abstract: In this paper, we studied the prosess of synthesize a-hydroxy dodecanoic acid(a-HDA) which can be obtained directly by hydrolysis of a-chlorine dodecanoic acid(a-CDA) under weak alkaline situation. A yield of 95.2% of a-HDA can be obtained after 6 hours under the following optimized conditions: n(CaCO₃):n(a-CDA) = 3.5, m(Cat):m(a-CDA)=0.02, m(H₂O):m(a-CDA)=2, reaction temperature at 130 ^oC. What's more, some means have been tried to separate the a-HDA from raw materials. Experimental result indicated that using petroleum ether as solvent to recrystal, the purity of a-HDA can reach 99.6%.