Paraffin oxidation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Paraffin oxidation is a historical industrial process for the production of synthetic fatty acids.[1] The fatty acids are further processed to consumer products such as soaps and fats as well as to lubricating greases for technical applications. Coal slack wax, a saturated, high molecular weight hydrocarbon mixture and by-product of the Fischer–Tropsch process was used as raw material. Side products were a wide range of carboxylic acids and oxidation products such as alcohols, aldehydes, esters, or ketones. The oxidation of paraffins was carried out in the liquid phase by molecular oxygen, e.g. by aerating with oxygen or atmospheric air, in the presence of catalysts such as permanganates, e.g. 0.1% - 0.3% potassium permanganate, at temperatures in the range of about 100 to 120 °C and under atmospheric pressure.[2][3][4][5][6]
The process was commercially important from the mid-1930s on and was carried out until the first years after the Second World War on a large industrial scale. Paraffin oxidation enabled for first time the large-scale production of synthetic butter from coal by chemical means which was at that time seen as a sensation.[7] Because of the high availability of inexpensive natural fats and the competition by petroleum-based fatty alcohols, the process lost its importance in the early 1950s.
