Based on the characteristic
that Ca2+ can react with
4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (EMP) to form a complexation with a phenol–calcium
ratio of 4:1, a new extraction and purification method of EMP is developed
for the first time in this work. At an optimum purification condition,
99.60% purity of EMP can be obtained through a reaction and decomposition
operation. By combining a variety of characterizations, which consist
of in situ Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR), nuclear
magnetic resonance (NMR), inductively coupled plasma optical emission
spectrometer (ICP-OES), gas chromatography–mass spectrometry
(GC–MS)/flame ionization detector (FID), elemental analysis,
and thermogravimetric analysis, the reaction mechanism of the coordination
process is studied. It is demonstrated that there are three stages
of the coordination reaction between Ca2+ and EMP. A neutralization
reaction occurs in the first stage, while the second stage is a mixing
reaction stage including neutralization and coordination reaction.
When the reaction proceeds to the third stage, another coordination
reaction occurs. Furthermore, phenol and ethanol are added as impurities
in EMP. EMP with a purity of more than 99.50% can be obtained using
this purification method. It confirms that this efficient method can
achieve a good purification effect even for EMP solutions with complicated
components.