A Novel and Efficient Method for Purification of Tert-Butylhydroquinone

Tert-butylhydroquinone is a high quality edible-oil antioxidant. tert-Butylhydroquinone has many advantages such as high activity, low mammalian toxicity, and high thermal stability. This article proposes a novel and efficient method for the purification of tert-Butylhydroquinone. The purification has two steps. A mixture of hydroquinone (wt%: 16.4%), tert-Butylhydroquinone (wt%: 68.1%), and 2, 5-ditert-butylhydroquinone (wt%: 15.5%) is washed with water to separate hydroquinone. A highly-purified tert-Butylhydroquinone (purity: > 97.0%),is then obtained by separating 2, 5-ditert-butylhydroquinone from crude tert-Butylhydroquinone using formic acid as solvent in the yield of 96.3%.