Pentaerythritol is a crystalline industrial alcohol widely used in many chemical industries as a basic raw material, mainly for the paint production.
Although the main features of its production are generally known and employed by many companies, the ALDER process offers many advantages for its inherent simplicity and thanks to the rather low investment and operating costs.
The main raw materials are formaldehyde and acetaldehyde. Further also caustic soda and small quantities of formic acid are used.
Sodium formate is obtained as by-product.
The always present higher homologues and formals impurities are separated in the ALDER process in order to obtain a top quality product containing 99% mono-pentaerythritol.