Butanone is an important component of the distillate (dry alcohol) of dry-dried wood. Industrially made from sec-butanol, butane, etc.

1. Separation of sec-butanol

There are two methods of gas and liquid dehydrogenation. The gas phase dehydrogenation uses zinc-copper alloy or zinc oxide as the catalyst, the temperature is 400-500°C, and the atmospheric pressure; the liquid phase dehydrogenation uses Raney nickel or copper chromite as the catalyst, and the temperature is 150°C. The liquid phase dehydrogenation reaction has lower temperature, lower energy consumption, higher yield, long catalyst life, and simple separation process.

2. butane liquid phase oxidation

The main product of butane liquid-phase oxidation is acetic acid, while the by-product butanone (about 16% of acetic acid production). Reaction temperature 150 ~ 225 °C, pressure 4.0 ~ 8.0MPa. For example, U.S. Union Carbide Corporation used this method to produce 226 thousand tons of acetic acid in 1976, and obtained 36,000 tons of by-product butanone. About 20% of the methyl ethyl ketone in the United States is produced by this method.

As of 2011, the methods being studied and developed include liquid-phase oxidation of butenes and isobutylene.

3. Butylene liquid phase oxidation

This method is called the Wacker method. The reaction was performed under the conditions of 90-120 °C and 1.0-2.0 MPa with palladium chloride/cupric chloride solution as the catalyst.

CH2=CHCH2CH3[O2]→CH3COCH2CH3

The conversion of butene was about 95%, the yield of butanone was about 88%, and the obtained reaction solution was purified by distillation or the like to obtain a finished product. This process is simple, but the equipment is heavily corroded and heavy metals are required as catalysts. This method has not yet been applied to large-scale production.