Production
In industry, propanoic acid is mainly produced by the hydrocarboxylation of ethylene using nickel carbonyl as the catalyst:
- H2C=CH2 + H2O + CO → CH3CH2CO2H
It is also produced by the aerobic oxidation of propionaldehyde. In the presence of cobalt or manganese ions, this reaction proceeds rapidly at temperatures as mild as 40–50 °C:
- CH3CH2CHO + ½ O2 → CH3CH2COOH.
Large amounts of propanoic acid were once produced as a byproduct of acetic acid manufacture. Currently the world's largest producer of propanoic acid is BASF, with approximately 80 kt/a production capacity.
Propanoic acid is produced biologically as its coenzyme A ester, propionyl-CoA, from the metabolic breakdown of fatty acids containing odd numbers of carbon atoms, and also from the breakdown of some amino acids. Bacteria of the genus Propionibacterium produce propanoic acid as the end product of their anaerobic metabolism. This class of bacteria is commonly found in the stomachs of ruminants and the sweat glands of humans, and their activity is partially responsible for the odor of both Swiss cheese and sweat.
Read more about this topic: Propanoic Acid
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“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)
“... this dream that men shall cease to waste strength in competition and shall come to pool their powers of production is coming to pass all over the earth.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)