The invention provides a preparation method of an
antioxidant TBHQ (tert-butylhydroquinone), which comprises the following steps: adding a certain amount of
reducing agent into
hydroquinone in the presence of an acid catalyst and a
solvent, heating to a
reaction temperature under the protection of
nitrogen, maintaining for a certain time, and then introducing isobutene to carry out
alkylation reaction; after the reaction is finished, separating the acid phase catalyst while hot, cooling, crystallizing and filtering an
oil phase to obtain a crude product, adding a certain amount of water and a
reducing agent into the crude product, carrying out
azeotropic distillation under the protection of
nitrogen to remove a
residual solvent, filtering while hot to remove DTBHQ, cooling, crystallizing and filtering filtrate to obtain a semi-finished product, and recrystallizing the semi-finished product by using a
solvent to obtain the DTBHQ. And finally, filtering and
drying in vacuum to obtain a white finished product TBHQ. According to the preparation method disclosed by the invention, through the design of the technological process, the output of oxidation byproducts TBQ and DTBQ is greatly reduced, the product quality and yield are improved, three wastes are reduced, the cost is reduced, and the
shelf life of the product can be prolonged.