Chemical processing nylon precursors

Benzene was first isolated by Faraday in 1825 from the liquid condensed by compressing oil gas. It is the lightest fraction obtained from the distillation of the coal-tar hydrocarbons, but most benzene is now manufactured from suitable petroleum fractions by dehydrogenation (54%) and dealkylation processes. Its principal industrial use is as a starting point for other chemicals, particularly ethylbenzene, cumene, cyclohexane, styrene (45%), phenol (20%), and Nylon (17%) precursors. U.S. production 1979 2-6 B gals. 

Conversion of benzene to cyclohexene by partial catalytic hydrogenation is a very important industrial process, since it provides a new route to cyclohexanol, a precursor of nylon, when combined with hydration of cyclohexene. For example, Asahi Chemical Company of Japan developed a selective bilayer catalytic system including a Ru catalyst, Zr02 and ZnS04 under 50 atm of H2 pressure, a process affording the olefin with up to 60% selectivity after 90% conversion of benzene.72... 

Most of the benzene used in chemical applications ends up in the manufacturing processes for styrene (covered in Chapter 8), cumene (covered in Chapter 7), and cyclohexane (covered in Chapter 4), Polymers and all sorts of plastics are produced from styrene. Cumene is the precursor to phenol, which ultimately ends up in resins and adhesives, mostly for gluing plywood together. The production of styrene and phenol account for. about 70% of the benzene produced. Cyclohexane, used to make Nylon 6 and Nylon 66, is the next biggest application of benzene. 

The volume of discarded carpets may exceed the capacity of the engineering resin market. In this case, it would be necessary to turn discarded carpets into new carpet fibre. Fibre spinning demands the highest resin quality and tolerances. By chemically recycling the nylon feedstock generated by the separation process, DuPont can obtain a material that as is good as virgin for a recycle content of maximum 50 per cent (ammonolysis only produces hexamethylene diamine (HMD) and the other precursor of PA 66, adipic acid, must be made from oil to obtain PA 66). 

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