Published February 2011
During the mid-to-late 1980s, PEP explored a series of process designs for pesticides and their intermediates [PEP171-PEP171D]. In those studies, a process for making chloroacetic acid was presented [PEP171]. Subsequent research and review of the literature suggests that alternate configurations are more commonly practiced. This review presents one such alternate process configuration based on the patent literature.
The focus of this review is a process configuration that minimizes over-chlorination first, and then recovers as much over-chlorinated material as possible to boost the yield on raw materials. While the process steps are similar in nature to the previous design [PEP171], the configuration required to address implementation issues results in a more complex process than previously shown.
