Acrylic acid globalization

In simple terms, the global sulfur cycle has two components. One is biochemical involving the conversion of sulfate to sulfide and the formation of DMS the other is atmospheric photochemical oxidation of DMS to sulfur oxyacids. DMS is formed mainly in the oceans by microorganisms and to a lesser extent in plants. About 38M0 Tg year-1 of DMS are released to the atmosphere from the oceans. The major precursor for DMS formation is the sulfonium salt, dimethylsulfoniopropionate, (CH3)2 S+ CH2 CH2 COOH, DMSP. DMSP lyase enzymes catalyze an elimination of acrylic acid from DMSP (Equation 12) with the release of DMS ... 

The different naming conventions in the chemical industry often lead to the assignment of different chemical names in different global jurisdictions. Ethyl acrylate is a very common chemical whose name clearly identifies the substance as the ethyl ester of acrylic acid, with the chemical formula C5H8O2, and the structural formula CH2=CH-COOC2H5. Every chemist would recognise this structure, and name it immediately. 

Lactic acid (LA) is one of the top carbohydrate-derived chemicals and it was recently included in BozeU and Petersen s revised selecticai of the top ten sugar-based chemicals [10, 24]. The conversion of carbohydrates into LA via anaerobic fermentation has been known for ages [25]. The first industrial fermentation was developed by A. Boehringer in 1895 and at the present time the global installed production capacity is estimated at 0.5 Mton year [10, 26, 27]. The current fermentation process and its issues will be critically discussed in Sect. 3 in light of the major application of LA today, i.e., as monomer for commercial bioplastic PLA [28]. Besides being used for polyester synthesis, LA is seriously considered as a platform chemical for the synthesis of a diverse range of chemicals such as pyruvic acid, 2,3-pentanedione, and acrylic acid [10, 29]. 

Acrylic acid has traditionally been used as the raw material for acrylic estos, polyacrylates, cross-linked polyacrylates, and copolymers. The global acrylic acid capacity was ca. 4.7 million tons in 2006, with an estimated average growth of 4%. Nowadays, acrylic acid is industrially obtained from a physically separated two-step process with propylene as the starting raw material. Firstly, propylene is selectively oxidized to acrolein at 300-350 C employing multicomponent catalysts based on metallic mixed oxides, i.e. MoBiO, FeSbO, or SnSbO. Then, the acrylic acid is obtained in a second step from acrolein oxidation at 200-260°C using multicomponent catalysts based on Mo-V-W mixed oxides. Thus, an overall acrylic acid yield of 85-90% is reached. 

The substitution of propylene by propane as the feedstock in the current industrial process for acrylic acid manufacture would lead to many advantages " i) propane is cheaper than propylene ii) only one step would be required in contrast to the current two-step process used in industry and iii) the CO2 emissions from the global process would be lower if propane were used. Thus, taking into account the former advantages of the process from alkane, it is indeed interesting to consider substituting the current acrylic acid process in the near future. 

Acrylic acid represents a 4.5 million metric ton per year global market with BASF, Dow, and Arkema being major manufacturers [15]. AcryUc acid is manufactured by the oxidation of propylene. The reaction is a two-step process with oxidation to acrolein followed by further oxidation of the aldehyde to the carboxylic acid. Acrolein is a raw material for cosmetics, flavors, and pharmaceuticals. The major use of acrylic acid is as a monomer to make acrylic acid polymers and conversion to acrylate esters which are also used to make polymers. 

For its relevance, propene is one of the most important olefins. Propene is obtained mainly from naphtha steam cracking as a coproduct with ethene, and also as a coproduct from fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) units at refineries. Relatively small amounts are produced by propane dehydrogenation and by Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. Because of the strong global demand for polypropene, acrylonitrile, 0x0 alcohol, and acrylic acid products, present propene supply from conventional sources cannot fulfill the market needs. An alternative route to propene is by applying the metathesis reaction for the conversion of a mixture of ethene and 2-butene into propene (Equation [16.2]). 

Global propylene demand is about SOmillion tons. It is mainly used in the production of polypropylene (60% of propylene demand), and it is consumed for the production of propylene oxide, acrylontrile, acrylic acid, and butanol. Different methods are available for the production of bio-based propylene. 

Acrylates and their downstream products are manufactured globally on a multimillion ton level as they are ubiquitous in daily hfe as hygiene products, coatings, adhesives, and food preservatives. Sodium acrylate is the most important industrial acryhc acid salt and is used as monomer for superabsorbent polymers. The combined thermodynamic need and market demand for the salt instead of the free acid, made sodium acrylate an ideal target molecule for our investigation. 

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