GB491800A - Improvements in or relating to the manufacture and use of acrylic acid esters and polymerisation products thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

Esters of acrylic acid with alcohols the radicles of which comprise straight or branched aliphatic chains of seven to sixteen carbon atoms, are manufactured by direct esterification in the case of primary alcohols, by treatment of the alcohols with acrylic acid halides or anhydride, by splitting off hydrogen halide or water from the corresponding esters of b -halogenpropionic acids or b -hydroxypropionic acid, by reacting the alcohols with ethylene cyanhydrin or by reacting the alcohols with low molecular acrylic esters. The reaction with ethylene cyanhydrin is effected in the presence of a dehydrating agent, e.g. by heating a mixture of the alcohol and ethylene cyanhydrin with sulphuric acid or by first treating the cyanhydrin with sulphuric acid and then heating the reaction mixture with the alcohol. In examples: (1) acrylyl chloride is heated with sec. octyl alcohol and calcium carbonate; (2) lauryl alcohol or the alcohols obtained by hydrogenation of coconut oil or its fatty acids or their esters are similarly reacted; (3) methyl acrylate is boiled with cetyl alcohol in the presence of b -naphthol and p-toluenesulphonic acid. Other alcohols specified are a -ethylhexanol, heptyl, octyl, nonyl, n-decyl and myristyl alcohols. Polymerization products are manufactured by polymerization, by the action of heat, irradiation or heat and pressure, if desired in the presence of polymerization catalysts, e.g. organic or inorganic peroxides, ozonides or gaseous oxygen, of the acrylic esters described above, alone or in admixture with one another or with other substances, e.g. other derivatives of acrylic or methacrylic acids, vinyl compounds, isoprene, butadiene or styrene. The products may be employed in paints, varnishes and lacquers, in lubricating oils for increasing the viscosity index, as plasticizers for nitrocellulose lacquers, in coating materials for rubber, leather or paper, as protective colloids in the preparation of emulsions, as adhesives in the preparation of laminated glass, e.g. by treating a sheet of celluloid with the monomeric material, interposing the treated sheet between two sheets of glass and completing the polymerization in situ, in the preparation of insulation material and moulding powders, in the treatment of fabrics, and in the impregnation of leather or other fibrous material. The polymerization of the products of the examples above is described.