China Industrial Grand Prize Awarded to SINOPEC for Novel Green Caprolactam Package Production Technology

Recently the Sinopec Corp. was awarded the China industrial grand prize on novel green caprolactam package production technology developed by the Research Institute of Petroleum Processing (RIPP) as the leading research institution.

Caprolactam is an important raw material in organic chemical industry. Caprolactam, as a monomer for manufacture of synthetic fibre Nylon-6 and engineering plastics Nylon-66, is extensively applied in many fields for creatively producing new materials, such as textile, automotive, electronics,etc. The novel green caprolactam package production technology is composed of six core techniques, including the continuous cyclohexanone aminoximation process in a single slurry bed, the caprolactam hydrofining technique in a magnetically stabilized bed, the gas-phase rearrangement of cyclohexanone-oxime to caprolactam, the new technique for cyclohexene esterification and hydrogenation to form cyclohexanone, the three-phase Beckmann rearrangement of cyclohexanone-oxime to caprolactam, and the ammonium sulphate neutralization and crystallization technique. The above-mentioned first four techniques were developed by RIPP as the leading institution with its achievements securing a leading position internationally coupled with nearly 200 Chinese and international invention patents.

The caprolactam production process can be regarded as a chemical industry technology fair, and the utilization of carbon and nitrogen atoms achieved by the traditional production technology is less than 80% and 60%,respectively, since the process flow scheme is very complicated along with severe corrosion and pollution,leading to high production cost. The novel green caprolactam package production technology is an integrated innovation consisting of new catalytic materials, new reaction engineering, and new reaction pathways, which can incarnate a leap-forward technological progress of traditional industries. This novel technology has remarkably simplified the process flow sheet, with the utilization of carbon and nitrogen atoms both reaching nearly 100% to decrease the production cost by 50% and reduce the investment cost by 80%, coupled with a nearly zero discharge of pollutants without producing and using such materials as NOx/SOxto command a leading position internationally. In 2019 the total caprolactam production in China reached 4 million metric tons, making China shifted from a whole caprolactam importer to a world No. 1 caprolactam producer to form a new industry worthy of 40 billion yuan, which also gives birth to a downstream industry worthy of 400 billion yuan.