How china labs making it so cheap?
Is it made in tube furnace (like p2p from phenylacetic and acetic acids)?
Friedel Crafts is very expensive for large batches.
Hi. As @HIGGS BOSSON said, they have high-tech equipment, access to precursores. Large loads have less costs and this reduces the cost of products. Also, they, probably, have own know-how to make it cheap. It is sort kind of manufacturer secret.
In the production of propiophenone by a vapor-phase, cross-decarboxylation process, an undesirable by-product, isobutyrophenone, is suppressed by addition of water or steam to the reactant stream.