Book Description
This report presents a cost analysis of Polyacetal Resins (also known as Polyoxymethylene, POM) production starting from methanol and acetic anhydride. The process examined is a conventional silver-catalyzed process with methanol recycle, combined with one owned by DuPont for producing the POM. In this process, methanol is converted to Formaldehyde (37wt% solution) over a silver catalyst. The formaldehyde (37wt% solution) is concentrated to a purity higher than 99.9wt% by means of two distillation steps and a treatment step. High purity formaldehyde is then polymerized in an inert cyclohexane medium. This report was developed based essentially on the following reference(s): (1) "Formaldehyde", Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 5th edition (2) "Acetal Resins", Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 5th edition (3) US Patent 2768994, issued to Du Pont in 1956 Keywords: Acetyl resin, polyoxymethylene (POM) resins, polymer of formaldehyde, DuPont, polyformaldehyde, Formalin, silver catalyst, Uhde Inventa Fischer, EMS, formaldehyde solution, incomplete conversion