For many years, acrylic acid has been an important building block in the production
of many industrial and consumer products. Because of the importance of acrylic
acid, several PEP reports have evaluated processes for the production of acrylic
acid and related esters. Since the last PEP update in 1987, there have been
substantial process improvements, resulting in lower production costs and reduced
capital investment costs for new acrylic acid and ester plants. Recent changes
in the catalyst allow much higher reactor space-time yield of acrylic acid.
Because of these important changes, we have updated the process to produce acrylic
acid by vapor phase oxidation of propylene. We also evaluated the production
of n-butyl acrylate based on a recent BASF patent. The process economics for
a new grass-root acrylic acid plant and nbutylacrylate plant were evaluated
and compared with earlier processes. In addition, we have summarize relevant
new patents and the current state of the acrylic acid and ester industry. Because
of the significant reduction in capital investment and production costs with
these process improvements, this report will be of great interest to producers
of acrylic acid and esters. Although this report principally addresses new grass-root
acrylic acid and ester production plants, the retrofitting of existing plants
with these process improvements is feasible with relatively small capital investment.
