关键词: 丙烯腈, 生物质, 甘油, 谷氨酸, 3-羟基丙酸, 催化剂

Abstract:

Biomass has been widely applied to the research on synthesizing acrylonitrile due to its characteristics such as abundance in nature, environmentally friendliness and recyclability. In this article, the ongoing research in the process of acrylonitrile synthesis was reviewed, focusing on renewable biomass resource including glycerol, glutamic acid and 3-hydroxypropionic acid. Three processes using different catalysts were introduced and discussed, including two steps (dehydration and ammoxidation) of glycerol, decarboxylation from glutamic acid and nitrilation of 3-hydroxypropionic acid. The yield of acrylonitrile using the first process was around 60%, which was much less than 80%+ of propene ammoxidation process. Besides, catalyst used in the process has a poor stability because of carbonaceous deposits. Therefore, increasing acrylonitrile yield and catalyst stability would be the primary goals in the future research. The advantage of the second process is significant without ammonia feedstock, while the process is more complex and less environmentally friendly. The yield of acrylonitrile was no more than 20%, so further exploration of the optimal process and catalytic performance should be included in future research. As for the third process, the absence of oxygen feedstock from the reaction sharply reduced the production of carbon oxides and side products, especially hydrogen cyanide. The acrylonitrile yield of this process exceeded over 90%, which is far beyond than that of propene ammoxidation process. Thus, nitrilation process of 3-hydroxypropionic acid provides a cost-comparable, sustainable route to acrylonitrile, which makes it possible to produce low-cost PAN carbon fibers in domestic market.

Key words: acrylonitrile, biomass, glycerol, glutamic acid, 3-hydroxypropionic acid, catalyst