Our company has been working hard to find a low-cost, high-safety synthetic route to prepare high value-added 9-fluorene methanol from fluorene. In our study, two different "catalyst-cocatalyst-solvent" reaction systems were used. Firstly, 9-fluorenemethanol was synthesized by phase transfer catalysis and the "one-pot method" using the "solid base-polyethylene glycol-dimethyl sulfoxide" system. The effects of the type of solid base, the amount of PEG600, the amount of ethyl formate, the amount of paraformaldehyde, the reaction temperature, and the reaction time in different stages on the yield of 9-fluorene methanol were investigated. The results showed that the reaction selectivity was high, and the 9-fluorene methanol content of crude shovel product was as high as 98.3% (HPLC), but the yield was not high enough, only 36.7%.
