Fossil vs. Renewable Sources for Chemicals Production: A new Process for the Production of Acetonitrile from Bioethanol

A new fully integrated ethanol-to-acetonitrile production plant has been designed here from the grass roots on a pilot scale (10 kg/h) from ethanol, ammonia and air. Besides the reaction section, the full separation train for pure acetonitrile recovery (> 99%) has been optimized and integrated with the recovery of all the byproducts (CO2, HCN) and unreacted NH3. The recovery and valorisation of the marketable byproducts (cyanide salts and NH4HCO3) is also discussed. Finally, the process consumes more CO2 than what constitutes the reactor byproduct, allowing the further sequestration of this greenhouse gas.