Asahi Kasei Chemicals Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; www.asahi-kasei.co.jp) will construct a validation plant at its Mizushima Works facility (Kurashiki, Okayama, Japan) for its newly developed process to produce diphenyl carbonate (DPC), a monomer used in polycarbonate (PC) production, via dialkyl carbonate (DRC).
Asahi Kasei Chemicals has built a successful business globally licensing its non-phosgene process for PC using CO2 as feedstock. Validation of the new process will enable the company to license PC as the intermediate process for DPC, strengthening the competitiveness of the licensing business.
The new process uses a catalyst developed by the company to obtain DRC from CO2 and alcohol in the first step, with DPC obtained from DRC and phenol in the second step. As the second step also yields the alcohol , which is required for the first step, the only starting materials are CO2 and phenol. Therefore, the new process provides greater freedom in selection of a plant location than the non-phosgene PC process the company uses currently, which relies on ethylene oxide (EO) as feedstock. With fewer process steps, the new process is also more energy-efficient, enabling production costs to be reduced substantially.
By advancing the effective and economical use of CO2 as a feedstock in industrial chemistry, the DRC process for DPC is attracting attention around the world as a significant technology for environmental sustainability.
The planned capacity of the validation plant is 1,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr), with startup scheduled for January 2017.