Adipic production technologies

Although many variations of the cyclohexane oxidation step have been developed or evaluated, technology for conversion of the intermediate ketone—alcohol mixture to adipic acid is fundamentally the same as originally developed by Du Pont in the early 1940s (98,99). This step is accomplished by oxidation with 40—60% nitric acid in the presence of copper and vanadium catalysts. The reaction proceeds at high rate, and is quite exothermic. Yield of adipic acid is 92—96%, the major by-products being the shorter chain dicarboxytic acids, glutaric and succinic acids,and CO2. Nitric acid is reduced to a combination of NO2, NO, N2O, and N2. Since essentially all commercial adipic acid production arises from nitric acid oxidation, the trace impurities patterns ate similar in the products of most manufacturers. 

D-Glucaric acid, directly produced by nitric oxidation of glucose or starch, is usually isolated as its 1,4-lactone. The technical barrier to its large-scale production mainly includes development of an efficient and selective oxidation technology to eliminate the need for nitric acid as the oxidant. Because it represents a tetrahydroxy-adipic acid, D-glucaric acid is of similar utility as adipic acid for the generation of polyesters and polyamides (see later in this chapter). 

The molecule has been found to be an efficient electron carrier in electrochemical oxidation, converting secondary alcohols to ketones. Daicel of Tokyo has used NHPI in the development of custom production in proprietary air-oxidation technology , and it can also be used to oxidize cyclohexane to adipic acid and p-xylene to p-toluic acid in the presence of Mn + or Co + salts. The new process produces no nitrogen oxides, is more environmentally friendly and does not require the use of denitration equipment. 

Palladium catalyst stability, recovery and recycle are the key to viable commercial technology. Continuous palladium recovery and recycle at 99.9% efficiency is critical to the economics of the process. Traditional catalyst recovery methods fail since the adipic acid precursor, dimethyl hex- -enedioate, is high boiling and the palladium catalytic species are thermally unstable above 125 C. Because of this problem, a non-traditional solvent extraction approach to catalyst recovery has been worked out and implemented at the pilot plant scale. Since patents have not issued, process detail on catalyst separation, secondary palladium recovery, and product recovery cannot be included in this review. 

L Crawford, AM Stepan, PC McAda, JA Ramboesk, MJ Conder, VA Vinci, CD Reeves. Production of cephalosporin intermediates by feeding adipic acid to recombinant Penicillium chrysogemim strains expressing ring expansion activity. Bio/ Technology 13 58-62, 1995. 

Despite its brilliant results, it seems unlikely that the Solutia process can become a major source of phenol. Nitrous oxide availability is quite limited and its production on-purpose (by the conventional ammonium nitrate decomposition, which enables nitrous oxide of high purity to be produced for medical anesthetic applications, or even by selective oxidation of ammonia) would result too expensive. Therefore, the only reasonable scenario to exploit the Solutia process is its implementation close to adipic acid plants, where nitrous oxide is co-produced by the nitric oxidation of cyclohexanol-cyclohexanone mixtures and where it could be used to produce phenol instead of being disposed of However, the stoichiometry of the process is such that a relatively small phenol plant would require a world-scale adipic acid plant for its nitrous oxide supply. In fact, a pilot plant has been operated using this technology, but its commercialization has been postponed. 

These improvement potentials lay in different technologies (Polymer Polyamide routes, Adipic acid - Hexamethylenediamine, lost core/twin shell. Aluminum Form of anode (only of interest at primary production), cleaning step during recycling, recycling material percentage)... 

---