Gas-Phase Synthesis of Hydrocyanic Acid through Oxidation of N2

该项目旨在重新审视工业规模的氢氰酸合成，以解决两个主要挑战：1。可持续性/二氧化碳足迹：目前的合成途径首先是通过哈伯-伯希工艺激活空气中的氮，并通过一系列化学转化步骤将其转化为氢氰酸。合成氨需要大量的H2，而H2是化学工业中碳足迹最大的试剂。然而，这些氢在最终产品中是不需要的，但它在随后的步骤中转化为水。因此，我们建议为氢氰酸的合成创造一种新颖的，更可持续的工艺选择，可能涉及通过氧化而不是氢从空气中激活氮。由于这将是一个多相催化气相过程，因此连续处理是唯一合理的操作模式-并且需要气相流化学过程来开展该主题的研发。分布式制造：HCN是化学工业中大规模处理的最危险和最有毒的成分之一。因此，在大型“一体化”基地，氢氰酸在一个工厂生产，并通过管道直接输送到下一个工厂，在那里消耗。然而，通过公路或河流运输到其他地点是不希望的，几乎是不可能的。因此，如果没有指定的世界级氢氰酸工厂，在较小的地点根本无法获得，这限制了较小地点的合成选择范围和公司内部计划生产的灵活性。想出一种流动化学过程，可以在较小的地点操作，只产生所需的（少量）量，这将是有吸引力的。从安全的角度（就地发电）和建立工厂的特定投资（以每吨和每年的欧元计算）来看，连续（流动化学）工艺将具有优势。在其概念阶段，该项目将根据可持续性和技术经济方面全面评估各种加工选择。它将需要化学工程技能以安全的方式操作气相过程。我们期望大部分的实验工作处理多相催化，因为这决定了产率和选择性的过程。

This project aims at revisiting the synthesis of hydrocyanic acid on an industrial scale to address two main challenges: 1. Sustainability/CO2-footprint: The current synthetic pathway starts with activating nitrogen from air via the Haber-Bosch-process and converting it in a series of chemical conversion steps to hydrocyanic acid. In synthesizing ammonia, much H2 is required, which is the reagent that accounts for the greatest carbon-footprint in chemical industry. However, this hydrogen is not required in the final product, but it is converted to water in the subsequent steps. We therefore propose to create a novel, more sustainable process option for the synthesis of hydrocyanic acid that likely involves activation of nitrogen from the air through oxidation rather than with hydrogen. As this will be a heterogeneously catalyzed gas-phase process, continuous processing is the only reasonable mode of operation - and a gas-phase flow-chemistry process will be required to carry out R&D on this topic.2. Distributed manufacturing: HCN is one of the most hazardous and toxic compenents that is handled in the chemical industry at large scale. Therefore, in big "Verbund" sites hydrocyanic acid is produced in one plant and directly transported to the next plant via pipelines, where it is consumed. However, transportation on roads or rivers to other sites is undesired and almost impossible. Therefore, it is simply not available at smaller sites without a designated world-scale hydrocyanic acid plant, limiting the range of synthetic options at the smaller site and the flexibility of planning production within a company. It would be attractive to come up with a flow chemical process that can be operated at smaller sites produces just the required (small) amount. A continuous (flow chemistry) process would be of advantage from a safety perspective (in-situ generation) and because of the specific investment in setting up the plant (in Euros per ton and year). In its conception phase, this project will be holistically assess various processing alternatives based on sustainability and techno-economical aspects. It will require chemical engineering skills to operate gas-phase processes in a safe way. We expect a large fraction of the experimental work to deal with heterogeneous catalysis as this determines yield and selectivity of the process.