1. HISTORY AND GENERAL INFORMATION ON ADIPIC ACID
1. History on The Production
Adipic acid is an important organic chemical raw material. In China, it is used as raw material in the production of Nylon 6/6 salt, polyurethane, plasticizers, high-grade lubricants and food additives. With the rapid growth of development, the application of adipic acid keeps expanding. The production of adipic acid is controlled in the hands of multinationals. An American chemical company (DuPont) is the biggest supplier in the world. On 2004, total capacity of adipic acid in the world was recorded to be as much as 2.74 million tons and Du Pont alone caters about 1.1 million tons which is almost 38% of the world total. After experiencing a period of rapid growth on the 80s, adipic acid production entered a period of stable growth in the 1990s. It is expected that the capacity of adipic acid will still maintain an annual growth of over 3% in the next few years (China National Chemical Information Center Reproduced, 2007).
China produced approximately 200 000 tonnes per annum. Over 45 300 tons of adipic acid was produced in 2000, but increased to 70 100 tonnes in 2001 and 133 400 tonnes in 2003 and the import amount in 2004 reached 173 700 tonnes, an increase of 30.2% over 2003. The import amount of adipic acid has increased at an annual rate of over 30% for four consecutive years and the dependence on import has reached more than 50% (Xudong Zhang, 2005). Due to the high demand on import, the market price of adipic acid has started at a very high rate. In the years after 2001 the price of imported adipic acid was maintained at RMB 9 000-11 000 per ton in the domestic market. The price of domestic adipic acid was fixed according to the price of imported goods and was therefore basically similar with the import price. However in 2004, due to the oil price rise in the international market, the price of raw materials for the adipic acid production has made a drastic increase. The demand of adipic acid therefore made a rapid increase and the price also had a drastic rise. The price of adipic acid rises up to RMB 15 500 per ton in November 2004, hitting historical high. Even though the oil price in the international market dropped in early December 2004, the price of adipic acid still remained at a very high level amount (China National Chemical Information Center Reproduced, 2007).
Figure 1.1: 2003 adipic acid productions
According to a pie chart in figure 1.1, United States is the leader of the production of adipic acid with 36%, followed by Germany with 14%, France (11%), United Kingdom (8%), Canada (6%), South Korea and China both with 5%, Japan and Singapore with 4%, Brazil (3%) and lastly Italy and Ukraine with 2% each. Adipic acid is mainly use as monomer in manufacture Nylon 6/6 fiber, plasticizer, grease, polyurethane etc. There are several countries in the world that manufacturing the adipic acid. But there also countries that just is a supplier for this adipic acid to any factory that need adipic acid in their countries. The main countries that produce adipic acid are United State of America and also China. Almost ninety percent of adipic acid manufactured in United State of America is used to produce Nylon 6/6 fiber. In America also there is four adipic acid manufacturing plant in operation which are:
▪ Allied Signal Inc. which situated in Hopewell, Virginia with annual production capacity of 15,000 tonnes per annum. ▪ DuPont Chemicals in Orange, Texas producing about 190,000 tonnes per annum. ▪ DuPont Chemicals in Victoria, Texas producing 350,000 tonnes per annum. ▪ Monsanto Chemical Company in Pensacola, Florida with annual production capacity of 300,000 tons per annum.
In China also there are several major companies that manufacturing adipic acid. Products...