Aciylonitrile mechanism

Benz, F.W., Nerland, D.E., Pierce, W.M. Babiuk, C. (1990) Acute aciylonitrile toxicity studies on the mechanism of the antidotal effect of D- and L-cysteine and their A-acetyl derivatives in the rat. Toxicol, appl. Pharmacol., 102, 142-150... 

Commercially, aciylamide is formed from aciylonitrile by reaction with water. Similarly, the preferred commercial route to methaciylamide is through methacrylonitrile. Acrylamide polymerizes by a free-radical mechanism. Water is the common solvent for acrylamide and methacrylamide polymerizations, because the polymers precipitate out from organic solvents. 

AGR Agrawal, A.K., Jassal, M., Sahoo, A., and Garapati, S.K., Phase behavior and mechanism of formation of protofiber morphology of solution spun poly(aciylonitrile) copolymers in DMF-water system, J. Appl Polym. ScL, 119, 837, 2011. 

It was soon realized that commercial units would be based on the use of fluidized beds, which were then being introduced in refineries to produce gasoline. The most successful fluid bed process was introduced by Idol of Soldo in 1960 and used a bismuth phosphomolybdate catalyst supported on silica. Knapsack described a bismuth phosphomolybdate catalyst containing iron for aciylonitrile production in 1962. This rather more complex mixed oxide formulation, Fe7Bi2Moi2052, also supported on silica, foreshadowed improvements in the 1970s and the introduction of multicomponent catalysts. Since then several generations of improved catalysts have been introduced, e.g., by Sohio, as the reaction mechanism has been better understood. 

Extrusion processing of polyamide-6 (PA6) with aciylonitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) of different nitrile contents, and at elevated temperatures resulted in graft copolymerisation between the two components. Improvement of the impact strength of the PA6 was at a maximum with approximately 10 percent addition of NBR and blends were soluble in formic acid. Products were characterised using infrared and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, differential thermal analysis and mechanical properties. 16 refs. 

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