On April 20, 2020 the Nanjing Chengzhi Clean Energy Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chengzhi Stock Co., had signed an agreement with the Institute of Process Engineering (IPE), Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS) to cooperate in the development of new coalbased adiponitrile technology. The two parties firstly planned to build a 3-kt/a engineering demonstration unit. On this basis, they hope to engage in a larger-scale process technology development to form an industrial process technology package followed by construction of a commercial demonstration unit.

Adiponitrile is mainly used in the manufacture of hexanediamine, an intermediate of Nylon 66, the production technology of which is monopolized by overseas companies owing to the high technical barriers and investment restrictions, leading to a serious imbalance in the industry chain of “adiponitrile-hexanediamine-Nylon 66”. China,the world’s major producer and major consumer of Nylon 66, has to be dependent on adiponitrile imports at present,because it has not constructed any commercial adiponitrile production unit.

It is learned that since 2018 CAS began to work on the hydroesterification process (IPE) for converting coal-based feedstocks into adiponitrile. This process uses butadiene,coal-based CO and coal-based methanol to form methyl adipate, which is used to further react on ammonia to yield methanol and adiponitrile with the byproduct methanol being recycled back to the system. In comparison with the butadiene hydrocynation process and the acrylonitrile electrolysis-dimerization process, the IPE process is characteristic of simpler process flow scheme, less reaction steps,lower energy consumption, absence of highly toxic chemicals used, greener, and safer, with a better cost-effetiveness.This process uses the coal-based feedstocks, which can comply with the industry chain development trend that is conducive to the clean utilization of coal resources.