The present invention provides a vinyl alcohol-vinyl acetate copolymer having excellent solubility and a method for producing a vinyl alcohol-vinyl acetate copolymer. Provided is a vinyl alcohol-vinyl acetate copolymer including a unit of vinyl alcohol and a unit of vinyl acetate, the vinyl alcohol-vinyl acetate copolymer having a randomness value R of 0.5 or higher, the randomness value R being obtained using the following equation (1): $\begin{array}{cc}R=\frac{1}{L_A}+\frac{1}{L_O}& \left(1\right)\end{array}$
where L.sub.O represents a mean chain length of the unit of vinyl alcohol and L.sub.A represents a mean chain length of the unit of vinyl acetate.

Tin (II) glucarate is found to be effective alone and in combination with other tin compounds for catalyzing the reaction of carboxylic acids such as furan-2,5-dicarboxylic acid, terephthalic acid and adipic acid with alcohols such as the C1-C3 alcohols.

A catalyst for catalyzing transesterification of esters or esterification of fatty acids, the catalyst is selected from the group consisting of manganese (II) glycerolate, cobalt (II) glycerolate, iron (II) glycerolate, and any combination thereof. A method for transesterification reaction, includes: a) providing a catalyst, wherein the catalyst is selected from the group consisting of manganese (II) glycerolate, cobalt (II) glycerolate, iron (II) glycerolate, and any combination thereof; b) adding the catalyst, one or more alcohols, and a composition comprising one or more esters to a reactor to form a reaction mixture; and c) stirring while heating the reaction mixture for reaction to form transesterification products.

The present specification provides a method of preparing a heterogeneous linear carbonate, including transesterifying an aliphatic alcohol and a symmetric linear carbonate in the presence of a catalyst, wherein the catalyst is a porous type basic ion exchange resin having an exchange capacity of 1 (eq/l-wet resin) or more and 1.5 (eq/l-wet resin) or less. The preparation method of the present specification provides a method of preparing a heterogeneous, symmetric linear carbonate and asymmetric linear carbonate in high yield without a process of reactive distillation.

The invention relates to a process for preparing a carboxylic ester by reacting an aldehyde in the presence of an aluminum alkoxide, wherein the aluminum alkoxide is obtained either by reacting an aluminum hydride with an aldehyde or by reacting a different aluminum alkoxide with a carboxylic ester.

Disclosed herein is method for producing an iron dinuclear complex having two iron atoms bonded to each other via one oxygen atom and a ligand structure containing a Schiff base, a method which can produce an ester compound in high yield by the transesterification of an alcohol compound with a carboxylate ester even in the case where the raw material alcohol has a tertiary hydroxyl group which is usually difficult to esterify by transesterification, and a method which can produce a wholly esterified compound by transesterification catalyzed by an iron complex.

The present disclosure provides a method for preparing o-phenyl phenoxyalkyl acrylate, including: transesterifying an acrylate-based compound with a biphenyl alcohol compound in the absence of a solvent and in the presence of a catalyst and a polymerization inhibitor to prepare the o-phenyl phenoxyalkyl acrylate represented by the following formula (II),

##STR00001##

wherein the catalyst is a compound containing a tin element or a titanium element. According to the method of the present disclosure, the o-phenyl phenoxyalkyl acrylate having transparency and high refractive index can be obtained. Moreover, the method of the present disclosure has the characteristics of high conversion rate and high selectivity, and does not need to add other organic solvents, so that many purification processes can be saved, and the production cost is effectively reduced, which has the value of industrial application.

The present disclosure provides a method for preparing o-phenyl phenoxyalkyl acrylate, including: transesterifying an acrylate-based compound with a biphenyl alcohol compound in the absence of a solvent and in the presence of a catalyst and a polymerization inhibitor to prepare the o-phenyl phenoxyalkyl acrylate represented by the following formula (II), ##STR00001##
wherein the catalyst is a compound containing a tin element or a titanium element. According to the method of the present disclosure, the o-phenyl phenoxyalkyl acrylate having transparency and high refractive index can be obtained. Moreover, the method of the present disclosure has the characteristics of high conversion rate and high selectivity, and does not need to add other organic solvents, so that many purification processes can be saved, and the production cost is effectively reduced, which has the value of industrial application.

A process for synthesizing at least one levulinate ester, said process comprising the reaction of furfuryl alcohol with at least one other alcohol in the presence of water and at least one catalyst, said furfuryl alcohol being present in a quantity of at least 5% by weight, based on the total weight of the alcohols, and said catalyst comprising at least one triflate ligand and at least one metal selected from bismuth, gallium, aluminum, tin and iron.

Dehydrogenative coupling can be achieved in nearly quantitative conversions and yields using a membrane reactor.