Process for producing colour-stable industrial-grade methyl glucoside.

摘要

Industrial-grade methyl glucoside with improved colour stability, which can be used for all common applications, in particular for the production of polyurethane foams, is obtained by reacting glucose in two stages with methanol and a higher-boiling alcohol at elevated temperature in the presence of an acidic, preferably heterogeneous catalyst under as dry as possible conditions, the glucose being either a) reacted in the first stage with methanol to give a starting product high in methyl glucoside, which in the second stage is reacted with the higher-boiling alcohol until the residual glucose content is below 0.3%, or b) reacted with the higher-boiling alcohol in the first stage until the residual glucose content is below 0.2% whereupon this intermediate product is in the second stage reacted with methanol until the methyl glucoside content is at least 60 w/w%.