Amoco Oxidation
About 70% of the terephthalate feedstock
used worldwide is produced with a catalyst
system discovered by Scientific Design [5, 6].
Almost 100% of new plants use this reaction.
A separate company, Mid-Century
Corporation, was established to market this
technology, and subsequently purchased by
Amoco Chemical. Amoco developed a
commercial process, as did Mitsui
Petrochemical, nowMitsui Sekka. Mitsuiwas
an
early licensee of Mid-Century. Both Amoco
and Mitsui participate in joint-venture
companies, and both have licensed the
process. Licensees are distributed around the
world, and some have relicensed the process
to other companies. A soluble cobalt
manganese bromine catalyst system is the
heart of the process. This yields nearly
quantitative oxidation of the pxylene methyl
groups with small xylene losses [7]. Acetic
acid is the solvent, and oxygen in
compressed air is the oxidant. Various salts
of cobalt and manganese can be used, and
the bromine source can be HBr, NaBr, or
tetrabromoethane [79-27-6] among others.
The highly corrosive bromine acetic acid
environment requires the use of titaniumlined equipment in some parts of the
process. A feed mixture of p-xylene, acetic
acid, and catalyst is continuously fed to the
oxidation reactor (Fig. 1). The feed mixture
also contains water, which is a byproduct of
the reaction. The reactor is operated at 175
225 C and 1500
3000 kPa. Compressed air is added to the
reactor in excess of stoichiometric
requirements to provide measurable oxygen
partial pressure and to achieve high p-xylene
conversion. The reaction is highly
exothermic, releasing 2108 J per kilogram
p-xylene reacted. Water is also released. The
reaction of 1 mol p-xylene with 3 mol
dioxygen gives 1 mol terephthalic acid and 2
mol water. Only four hydrogen atoms,
representing slightly over 2 wt% of the pxylene molecule, are not incorporated in the
terephthalic Acid.