| abstract |
A process is provided herein for the high yield production of high purity glacialnmethacrylic acid ("HPMAA") that is substantially pure, specifically 99% pure or greater, withnwater content of 0.05% or less and low levels of other impurities, including HIBA, acrylicnacid, MOMPA, methacrolein and others. This improved process comprises providing a crudenMAA stream and purifying the crude methacrylic acid stream in a series of successivendistillation steps involving two distillation columns. The inventive process is capablenproducing high purity methacrylic acid product that is especially suitable for the production ofnspecialty MAA polymers. |