Microscopic Solvent Properties of Supercritical Methanol and Its Application to Methylation

Abstract

Supercritical methanol, which has 512.6 K of critical temperature and 8.09 MPa of critical pressure, is a promising solvent for advanced chemical reaction processes. As this solvent can change the solvent properties much more widely and successively than liquids solvents and control the solvation structure easily by manipulating the temperature and pressure, we can realize the high reaction rate and the selective conversion to a desirable product atthe same time. In this review, we show the dependence of the microscopic solvent properties of suband supercritical methanol on temperature and pressure and explain the relationship between the properties and reactivity. Then we describe the highly selective and non-catalytic methylation of aromatic ring , Nmethylation, 0-methylation and production of acetal from ketone using supercritical methanol.