Uses of Aldehydes and Ketones

Role in the Chemical Industry

Aldehydes and ketones are not just laboratory curiosities — they are everyday industrial workhorses. Across the chemical industry they are put to work in three broad roles:

• as solvents that dissolve other substances for a reaction or process
• as starting materials from which larger organic molecules are built
• as reagents that help synthesise other products

Formaldehyde

Formaldehyde is best known in its aqueous form. A 40% solution of formaldehyde in water is called formalin, and it is put to two very different jobs:

• preserving biological specimens (its ability to fix tissue keeps them from decaying)
• manufacturing resins and glues — it is reacted with phenol to give bakelite, a phenol–formaldehyde resin, and with urea to give urea–formaldehyde glue, along with a range of other polymeric products

Acetaldehyde

Acetaldehyde's main industrial role is as a feedstock rather than a finished product. It is the starting material from which several important chemicals are manufactured:

• acetic acid
• ethyl acetate
• vinyl acetate
• various polymers
• drugs

Benzaldehyde

Benzaldehyde finds use where fragrance and colour matter — it is employed in perfumery and in the dye industry.

Acetone and Ethyl Methyl Ketone

Among ketones, acetone and ethyl methyl ketone are valued chiefly as common industrial solvents, used wherever a process needs a substance dissolved or diluted. …