METHOD OF PRODUCING ε-CAPROLACTONE AND 1,6-HEXANEDIOL Russian patent published in 2015 - IPC C07C31/20 C07C29/149 C07D313/04 

FIELD: chemistry.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to a method of producing 1,6-hexanediol and ε-caprolactone, which includes the following steps: (a) esterification of a dicarboxylic acid solution with an alcohol, (b) partial catalytic hydrogenation of the mixture of esters obtained at step (a), (c) distillation of the hydrogenation product obtained from step (b) and separating the overhead product which contains 1,6-hexanediol, and (d) cyclisation of the 6-hydroxycaproic acid ester from the vat fraction from step (c) in the presence of at least one alcohol with boiling point in the region of the used pressure, which is higher than the boiling point of ε-caprolactone, a mixture of such alcohols or a composition containing such alcohols, wherein said alcohol is free or bound as an ester component of the vat fraction, (e) purification of ε-caprolactone from the distillate from step (d) via distillation, wherein, cyclisation at step (d) is carried out in a liquid phase in an apparatus with a column having more than one theoretical separation stage.

EFFECT: method enables to obtain ε-caprolactone with high degree of purity and 1,6-hexanediol in a single process.

16 cl, 1 dwg, 2 ex