Abstract: In a process for preparing alcohols comprising the hydrogenation of aldehydes in the presence of a hydrogenation catalyst in the gas phase, the improvement comprising adding nitrogen-containing bases to the aldehyde to be hydrogenated, whereby the formation of by-products is largely suppressed and isolation of the desired alcohols in high selectivity and correspondingly high yield is made possible.

Abstract: A process for the preparation of alcohols by reaction of organic carbonyl compounds with hydrogen in two stages at elevated temperature and, optionally, elevated pressure. In the first stage, hydrogen and the carbonyl compounds are fed as a gas to a copper-containing catalyst and reacted to 80 to 99.5 percent of the theoretical conversion. In the second stage, the reaction product of the first stage is fed to a nickel/alumina/zirconium dioxide catalyst as a liquid, along with hydrogen. The carbonyl compounds used include aldehydes and their derivatives and, in particular, aliphatic unsaturated and saturated aldehydes.