Breakthrough to secure global acetonitrile supply

Acetonitrile supplier, INEOS, has announced a technological breakthrough that the company claims will allow it to significantly improve the security of the global acetonitrile supply.

Acetonitrile is a widely used solvent in HPLC and is manufactured mainly as a by-product of the creation of acrylonitrile, which is used in plastics. As demand for cars and electronics has collapsed recently, less acrylonitrile has been made, affecting the supply of acetonitrile.

As a supplier of acrylonitrile, INEOS claims to also produce around 40% of the world’s acetonitrile.

"INEOS Nitriles technology allows us far more flexibility to produce around 50% more acetonitrile during periods of weak acrylonitrile demand, without having to increase the production of acrylonitrile," says Rob Nevin, CEO INEOS Nitriles in a statement. "This technology is a major breakthrough that has implications across a broad range of pharmaceutical, food and industrial processes. The resulting flexibility means we can increase acetonitrile production as demand increases, removing any concerns that our customers may have about security of supply in the future."

According to the company the new technology has been successfully installed in the company’s Seal Sands facility in Teesside, UK and is also operational in its plants in Ohio and Texas, USA.

For more information visit the company’s website www.ineos.com

For more on LC•GC’s acetonitrile coverage over the past year see Incognito’s Overcoming the Acetonitrile Crunch... and Solutions to the Acetonitrile Crisis — Five Company Perspectives from The Column and from LC•GC North America, Ron Majors’ column — The Continuing Acetonitrile Shortage: How to Combat it or Live with it.