ABSTRACT
The naming of this process has been confused because of various corporate relationships. The basic invention was created in 1957 at the Consortium für Elektrochemische Industrie, Munich, a whollyowned subsidiary of Wacker-Chemie. It has therefore been called both the Wacker process and the Consortium process. But for many years, Wacker-Chemie has had a close relationship with Farbwerke Hoechst, and the latter company has participated in some of the development and licensing activities, so two other names have come to be used: Wacker-Hoechst and HoechstWacker. The five inventors (J. Schmidt, W. Hafner, J. Sedlmeier, R. Jira, and R. Rüttinger) received the Dechema prize in 1962 for this invention. The acetaldehyde process was first operated commercially in 1960. In 1997, this process was used in making 85% of the world’s production of acetaldehyde. Although Wacker-Chemie still makes vinyl acetate, it no longer uses the Wacker process to do so.
