Continuous Flow Synthesis of Crotonic Acid from Crotonaldehyde

At present, crotonic acid is mainly produced by oxidation of crotonaldehyde with O₂ in batch reactors. This process suffers from poor selectivity, low yields, and safety hazards. An expeditious and highly efficient continuous-flow process has been developed for the production of crotonic acid from crotonaldehyde with air. Compared with the batch process, the continuous flow process has significant advantages such as higher yields and shorter residence time. The flow protocol in this work provided the desired product with over 91% yield and 99.5% purity. Moreover, the recovery of raw materials ensures high utilization of reagents. The process is safe, efficient, and low-cost, which has the potential for industrial production of crotonic acid.