Process for conducting chemical reactions with formaldehyde

摘要

A formaldehyde reactant is provided to a chemical process or reaction, in the form of a formaldehyde-alcohol complex, by contacting paraformaldehyde with from about 0.25 to about 3 mole equivalents of an aliphatic alcohol in the presence of a catalytic amount of a base. In a preferred embodiment the chemical process is a process for the production of an aromatic azomethine by reaction of an aniline with formaldehyde. The azomethine may then be used to produce a haloacetanilide.