Acrylamide by Enzymatic Hydration of Acrylonitrile

Nitto Chemical Industry has developed an enzymatic hydration process for the production of acrylamide from acrylonitrile. It has built an 8.8 million lb/yr (4,000 metric tons/yr) plant based on the technology. Our evaluation indicates that this enzymatic route has the potential to be economically viable in plants of roughly 20 million lb/yr (9,000 metric tons/yr) capacity or greater. The preliminary process economics estimated for the enzymatic process are, however, slightly less favorable than those estimated for a conventional catalytic hydration (of acrylonitrile) process using fixed catalyst at 33 million lb/yr plant capacity (PEP Yearbook, 1984 edition).