Synthesis and characterization of trimethylolundecane

Trimethylolundecane is synthesized from lauric aldehyde and formaldehyde,using sodium hydroxide as catalyst.The structure of synthesized product,trimethylolundecane,is characterized with 13C Nuclear Magnetic Resonance(NMR).The effects of reactant ratio,catalyst amount,reaction time and reaction temperature on the yield of trimethylolundecane are investigated.The synthetic conditions are optimized as follow:molar ratio of formaldehyde to lauric aldehyde is 6.5,molar ratio of sodium hydroxide to acetaldehyde is 1.25,the first step of reaction temperature is 45℃ with reaction time 240 min,and the second step of reaction temperature is 55℃ with reaction time 90 min.The optimized processes result in the yield of 86.12% for trimethylolundecane.