Production
In 2003, global production was about 1 million tonnes. The main production method is the oxidation of ethylene via the Wacker process:
- 2 CH2=CH2 + O2 → 2 CH3CHO
Alternatively, hydration of acetylene, catalyzed by mercury salts gives ethenol, which tautomerizes to acetaldehyde. This industrial route was dominant prior to the Wacker process When smaller capacities are required it can also be prepared via dehydrogenation or partial oxidation combined with dehydrogenation. Some acetaldehyde forms upon hydrogenation of CO, but this method is not used commercially.
Read more about this topic: Acetaldehyde
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)
“It is part of the educator’s responsibility to see equally to two things: First, that the problem grows out of the conditions of the experience being had in the present, and that it is within the range of the capacity of students; and, secondly, that it is such that it arouses in the learner an active quest for information and for production of new ideas. The new facts and new ideas thus obtained become the ground for further experiences in which new problems are presented.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)
“From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
—Charles Darwin (1809–1882)