Adiponitrile plant Shanghai Invista - Arhive
The world-class adiponitrile plant settled in Shanghai, why is the localization road difficult?
On the news, today, INVISTA and Shanghai Chemical Industry Park (SCIP) signed a memorandum of cooperation to start the design of a 400,000-ton adiponitrile (ADN) production base, with an estimated investment of more than 1 billion US dollars (7 billion yuan), plans Construction began in 2020 and production started in 2023.
It is reported that this is the first adiponitrile plant in China and the largest investment project in the history of INVISTA.
INVISTA is one of the world’s largest integrated producers of chemical intermediates, polymers and fibers.
In the past five years, INVISTA has invested more than US$600 million in China to support the nylon market, including the 215,000-tonne hexamethylenediamine (HMD) plant and the 150,000-ton polymer plant located in the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park (SCIP).
INVISTA has the global know-how for the production of adiponitrile from the butadiene process , which has been the result of nearly 300 million RMB (US$40 million) in research and development in Europe and the Americas in the past four years.
Compared with other technologies, this technology reduces greenhouse gas emissions by half and energy consumption per unit by 40%.
Adiponitrile is 100% dependent on imports
Adiponitrile is a key intermediate in the production of PA66. It is mainly used to produce nylon intermediate diamines, and about 90% of adiponitrile is used in the production of nylon 66 salts.
Due to the high technical barriers and high investment thresholds, the concentration of adiponitrile industry is extremely high.
There are 14 sets of global adiponitrile production facilities with a total production capacity of about 2 million tons. Among them, the five companies of INVISTA, BASF, Solutia, Rhodia, France and Asahi Kasei have a total production capacity of 1.72 million tons.
At present, the global supply of adiponitrile is tight. Most of the production capacity is only used for the production of hexamethylenediamine and nylon 66. Only INVISTA, BASF and Rhodia have some surplus adiponitrile products for sale.
Due to the foreign technology monopoly and blockade of the preparation of adiponitrile by butadiene, there is currently no enterprise in China that can produce adiponitrile on a large scale, all relying on imports, and the price is completely controlled by foreign manufacturers . Even the domestic nylon 66 leading enterprise Pingmei Shenma’s industrial chain is also lacking in adiponitrile.
At present, the adiponitrile of Pingmei Shenma is purchased from INVISTA, and the advantages of industrial integration are remarkable. The company is also working on the new production process of adiponitrile. Due to the technical difficulty, the technical patent of the butadiene method of foreign companies has been China’s registration has progressed slowly.
Domestic equipment is short-lived
On August 22, 2015, Shandong Runxing Chemical Technology Co., Ltd., located in Huantai County, Zibo City, Shandong Province, had a separator fire accident.
The company plans to build 100,000/ton annual HDI and 300,000 tons/year adiponitrile project. Its adiponitrile production system is the first device to adopt acrylonitrile electrolysis process in China. The company also plans to gradually build supporting projects such as acrylonitrile and nylon 66, and is determined to build a green high-tech fine chemical industry chain.
Runxing Chemical is the only adiponitrile production enterprise in China and has received attention in the industry.
After the accident, the localization time of adiponitrile in China continued to move backward.
PA66 future development
P PA66 still has a lot of room for development, and it is expected that demand growth will come mainly from China in the next decade. Based on the rapid development of China’s economy, based on China’s per capita nylon occupancy is still at a low level, based on the rapid development of the automotive industry in emerging countries, and the consideration of energy-saving and environmentally friendly development of automobiles, nylon 66 engineering plastics and nylon 66 industrial yarn, nylon 66 airbag wire and so on will have a lot of room for development in the Chinese market.
Compared with the increase in demand, China’s nylon 66 high-performance engineering plastics production capacity is seriously insufficient, and a considerable part of domestic demand depends on imports to meet。 The localization of raw material adiponitrile is still difficult and urgent.
Source : Sohu