Commercialization of SINOPEC’s Caprolactam Technology

The project “the PDP for 10 kt/a caprolactam unit” jointly developed by the Baling Petrochemical Company (BPC) and the Sinopec’s Shanghai Petrochemical Research Institute (SPRI) has passed the review of the Sinopec headquarters. It is said that the caprolactam manufactured according to the said PDP meets the quality standard of similar overseas product, with the production process being safe and controllable. The relevant institutions have applied for 5 Chinese invention patents with fully independent intellectual property rights.

China’s dependence on imported caprolactam exceeds 90%. Since the 1970s four enterprises, located in Yueyang city of Hunan province, Yancheng city and Nanjing city of Jiangsu province, and Chengdu city of Sichuan province, began to produce caprolactam in China. Owing to technical problems only BPC can normally engaging in production of caprolactam with a capacity of 200 t/a. The research on caprolactam production technology was commenced in 2006 at BPC, which made a success in pilot plant production in 2008. In December 2011 the pilot scale project of BPC had passed the appraisal of SINOPEC, and in 2012 the Sinopec Corp. had approved the project for preparation of the PDP of a 10 kt/a caprolactam unit. SPRI based on the basic data collected from the pilot unit has completed the development and compilation of PDP of a 10 kt/a caprolactam unit. In December 2012 this project passed the review of the Sinopec headquarters. The inspection and analysis of BPC’s product have revealed that its caprolactam quality is on a par with similar overseas product.