Antoncho,
First, let me thank you for the translation you gave us for that patent. I'd seen the reference to that procedure before, but since I don't speak Russian, I pretty much gave up on having that information.
Secondly, I wanted to thank you for asking this question. Essentially what you're looking for isn't really chloroacetic acid, but rather nitromethane. Since that's true, I did a little general search for nitroalkane preparations, and I found some
very good stuff. By finding things for you, I found a great deal of things for myself.
Perhaps the most interesting thing I found was the syntheses of nitroalkanes from alcohols. Yes, it looks like, methanol and ethanol can be used as starting material for nitromethane and nitroethane! There’s even an article in Russian that you could translate (if you don’t mind, puzhalyista.)
Chem.Ber., 54, 412, (1921)
J.Amer.Chem.Soc., 104, 8, 2296-2300, (1982)
J.Phys.Chem. 87, 9, 1622-1625, (1983)
Pol.J.Chem., 69, 10, 1437-1446, (1995)
Russ.J.Phys.Chem.(Engl.Transl.), 62, 5, 612-615, (1988)
Zh.Fiz.Khim., 62, 1209-1214 (1988)
Take care, and once again, thanks