The legacy and promise of heterogeneous selective oxidation and ammoxidation catalysis

This contribution is a brief technology retrospective but mostly a look forward at the trajectory of technology development for the manufacture of acrylonitrile. An analysis is presented for the criteria that would enable the displacement of the current dominant commercial SOHIO Process for selective propylene ammoxidation catalysis. These criteria reveal that significant opportunity exists for both fundamental and applied research directed toward the design of new catalysts for the current commercially dominant propylene ammoxidation process but also for novel catalysts that can enable the use of lower cost feedstocks for acrylonitrile manufacture. These feedstocks include propane and biomass derived sources. The ability to retrofit a new catalyst technology into existing propylene ammoxidation plant infrastructure is likely key to achieve displacement cost advantage of the magnitude that was realized by propylene ammoxidation catalysis decades earlier.